Commons 1790-1820

A flourishing port, Waterford had a large, predominantly freeman electorate, the number of registered freeholders not exceeding 50. The governing body of 40 accordingly provided a focus for the contending interests of the local landowning families of Alcock, Bolton and Carew and of the commercial and banking house of Newport, which was said in 1795 to hold the corporation in thrall. They in turn had to contend with a small army of port officials and a well-do-do Catholic body representing four-fifths of the population, whose admission as freemen made them a force to be reckoned with.

The nominal patron of this small seaport was the 5th Duke of Devonshire, who owned two-thirds of the manor and would probably have been happy to pocket £15,000 from its disfranchisement at the Union. Owing to his absence and negligence, however, during which William Brabazon Ponsonby was his agent, his interest was reduced to a mere handful of freeholders.

The 5th Duke of Devonshire, an absentee Whig grandee, had the leading proprietary interest on paper. It had become so run down that his kinsman William Brabazon Ponsonby, to whom he entrusted its management, had come to terms with the Marquess of Waterford, head of the Castle-orientated Beresford family, who had the strongest resident interest, whereby each returned one Member. This compromise ended on the death of the marquess on 3 Dec.

Dungannon was a close borough under the control of Thomas Knox, 1st Viscount Northland, who owned the whole of it in fee. He intended it primarily for members of his family, but difficulties arose. His son John, returned at the Union, had been lost at sea before the date of his return,The Times, 6 Feb. 1801. For this reason, John Knox is omitted from the biographical section. though the news of it came later. Northland substituted Sir Charles Hamilton, third cousin of his principal ally, the Marquess of Abercorn.

Tyrone, a large and populous Ulster county in which Protestants outnumbered Catholics, did not go to a poll in this period despite some contention among the leading proprietary interests of Lords Abercorn, Belmore, Northland, Caledon and Mountjoy and of the Stewarts of Killymoon. The latter, represented by James Stewart, who had succeeded his father to a county seat in 1768 and had held it ‘against government’, as his friend Charles James Fox alleged in 1806, for nearly 40 years, drew extensively on ‘the old presbyterian faction’ of independent freeholders for support.

The first return to Westminster for Clonmel after the Union was delayed owing to a transaction between John Bagwell I and the proprietors Lord Mountcashell and Stephen Moore, whom Bagwell bought out. Moore and John Dennis, the sitting Members, did not ballot for the seat and Bagwell returned his son William. The latter held the seat until 1819 when, on obtaining the county seat, he substituted his brother-in-law, having since 1816 been patron in succession to his father.

Richard Pennefather, whose family had been proprietors of this close borough since the early 18th century, was its parliamentary patron from 1787 until his death in 1831. After the Union, he occupied it for only a few months himself and then as a stopgap, preferring to sell it. The paying guest at the Union, Richard Bagwell, made way for his younger brother John in 1801, but from 1802 Pennefather sold the seat to the government, though John Bagwell was ready to bargain with him for it in 1806 and 1812.

In this large and populous county the Earl of Landaff, who owned 32,000 acres worth about £28,000 p.a., was the principal proprietor, while Lords Caher, Dunalley, Norbury, Hawarden and Dorchester had rentals in excess of £8,000. Lords Donoughmore and Kingston also had significant interests. The Bagwells of Marlfield were the leading commoners, but there were at least 1,400 freeholders worth over £50 in 1806 and, the population being predominantly Catholic, any Member who opposed Catholic claims—as did John Bagwell—paid for it at the polls.Wakefield, Account of Ireland, i.

Sligo, a flourishing port, was a close borough at the disposal of Owen Wynne. He returned himself on succeeding his father in 1789 and occupied the seat until June 1806, when he sold it to Col. George Canning of Garvagh for an annuity. The chief secretary was surprised and evidently disappointed when Wynne continued the arrangement with Canning in 1812, thinking the bargain had terminated and that Wynne would either sit himself, return his son-in-law, or offer it to government.Add. 40216, f. 48; 40280, ff.

Although the sitting Members, Cooper and O’Hara, opposed the Union, opinion in Sligo was reported by the Castle to be strongly in favour of it. This reflected the solidarity of the resident protestant gentry who, in a county where there was ‘so much of religious discord’ and in which the ‘Thrashers’ subversive activities threatened the peace in 1806, composed a force that ‘it will not do to quarrel in any way with’, so the viceroy was informed.