Commons 1715-1754

The Jacobites looked on Oxford University as one of their strongholds. When its Jacobite chancellor, the Duke of Ormonde, was attainted in 1715, another Jacobite, his brother, Lord Arran, was elected as his successor, holding the post till his death in 1758. All the Members returned were Tories, the only question being whether they should be moderates or extremists. At Oxford the King did not possess the power of creating honorary doctors, by which a Whig majority was secured at Cambridge.

In 1715 Higham Ferrers, consisting of about 250 houses, was controlled by Thomas Wentworth, a Whig, who had bought the manor, including most of the town, from the last Earl of Feversham.

King’s Lynn was dominated by the Turners, a leading town family, in alliance with the Walpoles, each returning one Member.

The county members were usually elected unopposed from among the leading Whig families, particularly the Powletts, Dukes of Bolton, the most important family in Hampshire, who owned large estates at Basingstoke, Alresford and Lyndhurst in the New Forest. In 1715 the election was compromised but on 25 Feb. 1722 the 3rd Duke of Bolton, the lord lieutenant, wrote to Sunderland:

From 1688 and until 1727 there was no predominant interest at Ludlow, which normally chose its representatives from among the neighbouring landowners, notably the Herberts of Oakley, the Baldwyns of Stokesay, and the Walcots of Bitterley and Walcot. The Duke of Chandos also had an interest through his close connexion with Humphrey Walcot as well as from his purchase of the Bishop’s Castle estate. Chandos was mainly responsible for procuring the return in 1719 of Sir Robert Raymond,Chandos to John Baldwyn, 9 Nov., 21 Dec.

At George I’s accession the chief interests at Yarmouth were in two local landowners, Anthony Morgan, a Whig, and Henry Holmes, a Tory. In 1715 Holmes and another Tory, Sir Robert Raymond, defeated Morgan and another Whig, Sir Theodore Janssen, who petitioned on the ground that 27 of their opponents’ voters were unqualified, under a by-law passed by the corporation in 1670 providing that no new members should be admitted unless the mayor and five other members, known as chief burgesses, were present.

At George I’s accession the chief interest in Newtown was that of the Worsleys, Tories, who in alliance with other burgage holders, notably the Holmes family, had held both seats since 1705. In 1715 Sir Robert Worsley and his cousin, James Worsley, were returned unopposed, as was his brother, Charles, in conjunction with another Tory, William Stephens, recommended by Henry Holmes, in 1722.T.

In 1715 the Newport seats were filled by Anthony Morgan, a government supporter, and William Stephens, a local Tory landowner, without opposition, though Morgan, who had been appointed lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight after George I’s accession, tried to persuade the Government to put up a second candidate, assuring them that ’it will be an easy matter to bring in two Whigs at that corporation’.T. Stephens, The Castle Builders, 41. At all subsequent elections both seats were filled on the recommendation of the Administration without a contest. On 30 Jan.

From 1715 to 1734 one seat at St. Ives was controlled by Sir John Hobart, who had the ’great tithe’ on pilchards and herrings, and built up a strong interest in the corporation, spending £2,000 on the contested election of 1722 and £500 on the unopposed 1722 election.Hobart Pprs. Norwich City Central Lib. NRS 21140, 75 x 1 and 2. The other seat was controlled by Charles Powlett, M.P., 2nd Duke of Bolton, recorder of the borough and lord of the manor.J.H. Matthews, St.

From 1715 Cornwall was represented by Tory country gentlemen, who were returned unopposed. There was a threat of a contest at a by-election in 1744, when Sir John St. Aubyn wrote from London to a leading Tory, James Buller: