Wareham could in 1660 fairly be classed as decayed, having lost its shipping to Poole and much of its industry to Blandford. During the Civil War Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper had wished to erase it from the map, ‘being extremely ill-built, and the inhabitants almost all dreadful malignants’, under the influence of the rector of Holy Trinity. George Pitt, who owned the principal advowsons and several large farms to the south and west of the town, enjoyed a strong natural interest.
Shaftesbury, a sessions town and a posting station on the great western road, was conveniently placed as a market where the sheep and corn country of Salisbury Plain met the dairy-farming and stock-raising pastures of the Vale of Blackmoor. As a relic of its medieval past it contained several gentlemen’s seats, but little or no industry owing to scarcity of water. The earls of Pembroke seem to have abandoned their interest as lords of the manor during the Interregnum, and the local magnate, Lord Arundell of Wardour, and his family were disqualified by recusancy.
Poole was a proud and prosperous little port in the 17th century, exporting pipe-clay and playing an important role in the Newfoundland fishery. But it was not, and never had been, large enough to justify its status as a separate county. This had been procured in 1568 by the efforts of Sir Henry Ashley of Wimborne St. Giles, and the family continued to claim one seat for themselves for at least a century.
Lyme was still a thriving port in the later 17th century, thanks to the Cobb, the artificial breakwater that provided a safe harbour for small ships on an otherwise open coast. Its upkeep was costly, but the town prospered on the cross-Channel trade, and leading merchants employed factors in Holland. It was best known, however, for its obstinate and successful resistance to the Cavaliers in the Civil War, which its inhabitants continued to commemorate long after the Restoration ‘by cleansing their streets, shouting, feasting and the like’.North, Lives, i.
In Dorchester, a puritan stronghold under the early Stuarts, dissenters (including Quakers) were numerous and vocal, but perhaps less bitter than in towns where the ecclesiastical influence was stronger. Since 1624 the freemen had firmly resisted all inducements to elect anybody but a resident. Usually the aim seems to have been to send up one active Member, a gentleman or lawyer, accompanied by a merchant as silent watchdog.
Corfe Castle, a small town in the Isle of Purbeck, was inconsiderable apart from its castle, slighted in 1646. As a legacy from its past it retained, in proportion to its population, a large number of resident gentry, including branches of the Okeden and Dackombe families. The Bankes family, as lords of the manor, constables of the castle and lieutenants of the island, controlled the borough. In 1660 and 1661 Sir Ralph Bankes retained the seat which he had won in 1659, although his father had been one of Charles I’s leading counsellors during the Civil War.
Economically, Bridport was static or declining. Its rope industry (based on local-grown flax and hemp) was faced with increasing competition from other areas using imported raw materials of better quality, and an attempt to open up its sand-choked harbour came to nothing. Resentment at the hearth-tax actually caused the death of one of the collectors in 1668.
Most of the successful candidates for Dorset came from the western divisions during this period, and in particular the representation of the county became ‘in a manner hereditary’ in the Strangways family. The concentration of freeholders in the crown manor of Portland, mostly engaged in supplying stone to the Office of Works gave special importance to the sinecure office of captain (or governor). Freeholders were also numerous in the former crown forest around Gillingham, where the Nicholas interest was powerful.Hutchins, Dorset, iv.
The Interregnum dealt severe blows to the two dominant interests in Totnes, the Seymour family and the cloth trade. The former sold their property in the town, including the castle, to pay off their fines as Royalists, but still from their residence at Berry Pomeroy, just outside the town, enjoyed a deference vote which was only once seriously challenged throughout the period. The latter, over-specialized for the Spanish market, never recovered from Cromwellian foreign policy.
Tiverton was the most considerable industrial town in 17th century Devon, remarkable for its numerous charities and benefactions. Its representatives were all resident in the county, and even country gentlemen like Sir Thomas Stucley and Henry Ford showed themselves aware of the economic concerns of their constituents. There was no dominant territorial interest, though the Colmans, a minor gentry family, owned a small fraction of the manor and resided within the borough. Presbyterianism was evidently strong.
