There was no contest for the county of Dorset during this period, and Members were sure of a long tenure. At the dissolution of 1754 the Members were George Pitt and George Chaffin. Pitt, first returned in 1747, succeeded in establishing his family’s claim to one seat, and it was held in turn by his son and cousin until 1826. Chaffin, the other Member, was 65 years of age, and there was doubt whether he would stand again. Two other candidates came forward.
A great deal depended at Totnes upon control of the corporation. The Duke of Bolton, the Duke of Somerset, and a number of smaller men had influence, and they competed against each other for Government support. Government could only bring its influence to bear through alliance with a local interest, and the electoral scene was always shifting.
Tiverton was the centre of the Devon cloth making industry; in 1754 it had a population of about 8,000, many of them Dissenters. In the first half of the eighteenth century Sir William Yonge had the principal interest. Dudley Ryder, a prominent Government lawyer who rose to be lord chief justice of the King’s bench, was first elected for Tiverton in 1734. Ryder had no property or natural influence there, but with the help of Government patronage he built up an interest which supplanted that of Yonge.
Tavistock was a complete pocket borough of the Duke of Bedford. Richard Rigby, thanking the Duke for his election, wrote on as Apr. 1754:
At Tavistock ... I saw more warmth and affection for you than you can imagine. There does not seem to be a single negative to your will in the whole town, nor would it be very safe in any one to offer it.
The same holds good throughout the period.
The power of creating new freemen was in the corporation, which in effect controlled the borough. The corporation was under the influence of two families, the Edgcumbes and the Trebys, who each nominated to one seat. The Edgcumbe seat was (except in 1768) always sold to Administration, the Treby seat when not wanted by the family themselves; and Lord Edgcumbe acted as intermediary with Government.
In 1754 Lord Barrington was put up for Plymouth while still a lord of the Admiralty, but by the time he was elected he had been appointed master of the great wardrobe. ‘It will make no variation to our sentiments’, wrote to him one of the chief men in the corporation, ‘as the borough is truly loyal, and from our knowledge of your Lordship, as well as the interest we have always espoused of the Admiralty.’Barrington mss. Barrington represented Plymouth for the next 24 years without ever having to fight an election.
Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc had a long-standing interest at Okehampton. Sir George Lyttelton was first returned there on his interest, but by 1747 had established himself sufficiently to withstand Pitt’s effort to turn him out. The Duke of Bedford, encouraged by Henry Pelham, also cultivated an interest in the borough. By 1754 Pitt, in hopeless financial straits, had pawned his interest to the Administration, while Bedford had gone into opposition; but a compromise was settled concerning Okehampton.
Honiton had a very wide franchise, and was one of the most venal boroughs in the kingdom. The electorate, which included most adult male inhabitants, was poor, unruly, and of low social standing: the poll book of 1763Photostat copy in Guildhall Lib. does not record a single esquire, and few professional men—most of the voters were labourers, artisans, or small shopkeepers. Candidates were sought out, and even advertised for,Porritt, Unreformed House of Commons, i. 357. and contests were frequent and expensive.
Exeter, a cathedral city and port, was the centre of the serge-making industry. The corporation or chamber had considerable influence in elections and put forward its own candidates. In the eighteenth century, when the chamber was strongly Anglican, its candidates were invariably chosen from landed families living near Exeter.
A good many of the Dartmouth electors were connected with the customs house and the castle, and Dartmouth was a Government borough managed by Arthur Holdsworth, of an old Dartmouth merchant family, and since 1753 governor of Dartmouth castle. After Poole, Dartmouth was the chief English centre for the Newfoundland fisheries and trade. The two Members at the dissolution in 1754, Walter Carey and his step-son John Jeffreys, were again Government candidates, and Newcastle’s election list notes against their names: ‘Settled. See Mr. Holdsworth’s letters.’Add. 32995, ff.
