Buckingham was a pocket borough of the Grenville family; and none but Grenvilles or relatives by marriage were returned during this period.
Aylesbury was squalid and venal, and without an established patron. Most of the neighbouring gentlemen preferred to leave the borough alone; elections were expensive; and rich outsiders were welcome. When Thomas Potter was appointed joint paymaster general in November 1756 he tried to conceal it from his constituents as long as possible, thus reducing the danger of a contested re-election. ‘I absolutely can’t afford above £500’, he wrote to his friend John Wilkes.
Amersham was a complete pocket borough of the Drake family of Shardeloes, one mile from Amersham, who owned most of the property in the town.
Buckinghamshire possessed a number of wealthy landed families with claims to the county representation: the Stanhopes, the Lowndes family of Winslow, the Hampdens of Hampden, the Claytons of Marlow, the Drakes of Shardeloes, the Lees of Hartwell, etc. The most considerable were the Grenvilles of Stowe and the Verneys of Claydon, and there was great rivalry between these two for pre-eminence in the county. In 1754 and 1761 Sir William Stanhope and Richard Lowndes were returned unopposed, and on Stanhope’s retirement in 1768 the county representation was thrown open.
Wallingford was a venal and expensive borough. In 1792 Oldfield wrote bluntly that ‘the highest bidder is always chosen ... Corruption is brought there to such a system that a legal discovery is not likely to be made, unless by a difference among the interested parties.’ The historian of the borough declared that the poorer classes ‘regarded any attempt to bring about a reformation of the borough as an attack upon their vested interests, deserving of determined, if not vindictive, opposition’.J. K. Hedges, Hist. Wallingford, ii.
Six of the eight elections for Reading during this period were contested, and the contests were remarkably expensive; even John Dodd’s return in 1755, which did not go to a poll, was not a cheap affair. The election of 1754 between Strode (a Tory), Fane (an Opposition Whig), and Dodd (a court Whig) was particularly hotly contested. ‘The electors, principally of the court side, have been remarkably venal’, wrote the Rev. Ralph Shirley on 11 June 1754. ‘. ...
In 1754 the Duke of Cumberland, who resided at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park, had the chief interest, and the borough was managed by Henry Fox. The Duke of St. Albans had an interest dating back at least to 1722, and a number of local landowners had considerable influence. There was a large proportion of independent voters, and the borough was not easily managed.
Although neighbouring landowners had a natural interest in the borough, it did not amount to patronage—‘one of the few boroughs’, remarked Oldfield in 1792, ‘over which aristocratical influence or corruption has not yet been able to extend its control’. But Shelburne in his electoral list of 1761 placed Abingdon among the ‘venal boroughs’, apparently not without justification.
There was no contest for Berkshire between 1727 and 1768 during which period the county returned a succession of Tory country gentlemen. The strongest interest was that of the Craven family; the Berties also had considerable influence, particularly in the towns of Abingdon and Wallingford.
‘The Duke of Bedford and the corporation’, wrote Philip Yorke to his father, Lord Hardwicke, 5 Aug. 1753, ‘have settled their affairs for the next election. The Duke brings in Mr. Ongley, and the corporation Mr. Herne.’ But unrest among the Duke’s friends was reported from Bedford in March 1754. ‘Many here ...
