Commons 1790-1820

Newcastle was considered to be a close borough of the 1st Marquess of Stafford and was so listed by the Treasury before the elections of 1790 and 1796. He secured it by cultivating the corporation and tradesmen and by letting his property rent free for five, ten or 15 years. But whereas there had been only one contest between 1734 and 1790, there were no less than eight in this period—with a minimum of four days’ polling and of over 500 voters. Nearly a third of the electorate was composed of feltmakers (journeyman hatters), the majority of whom voted against the marquess’s nominees.

In an interview with Buonaparte on Elba in 1814, Vernon, one of the Lichfield Members, was asked ‘about my seat in Parliament, what place I represented, what was the right of voting, what the number of my constituents and whether any and what influence preponderated among them’.Philbiblon Soc. Misc. viii. 11. Although Lichfield was classed as an open borough, control of it had been shared since 1747 by the Ansons of Shugborough and the Leveson Gowers of Trentham. The combination was opposed until 1761, but tightened its hold thereafter. Oldfield commented in 1792:

Staffordshire did not go to the poll between 1747 and 1832, during which period it became an important manufacturing county: by 1818 one of its Members claimed to represent 14,000 freeholders and in 1820 another was credited with staking £100,000 on the defence of his seat—although he gave it up.Staffs. RO, Hatherton mss M/F/5/26, diary, 19 June 1818, 31 Mar. 1820. Expense apart, contests were discouraged by the smooth operation of a compromise after 1753.

The corporation effectively controlled Wells, most of the freemen being outvoters.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii. 50; Rep. Hist. iv. 424. The leading interest lay in the Tudway family, which occupied one seat continuously from 1761 to 1830: Clement Tudway, the recorder, for 54 years, and his nephew from 1815 to 1830. The other seat was competed for by the local gentry, but for most of this period was occupied by Charles Taylor, son of a former Member. By July 1795 he was ‘unanimously approved’ as future Member, but his tenure was sometimes challenged.

The Taunton Market House Society, initially composed chiefly of dissenting manufacturers, but increasingly patronized by local gentlemen as the town acquired ‘genteel habitations’ and the exclusive corporation fell into abeyance, had been the prevailing influence at elections since 1768.Kite and Palmer, Taunton, 21; Oldfield, Boroughs, ii.

In 1790 John Fownes Luttrell, lord of the manor, continued his usual practice of returning himself and a paying guest who supported government: Viscount Parker, a placeholder, was subsidized by £2,000 out of the secret service fund. Minehead was regarded as a close borough and there was no contest, but 61 of the electors received a gift of four guineas each (minus any rent due from them as Luttrell’s tenants) and 14 one guinea each. Their number had been reduced by 80 after a conflagration in 1787, said by the patron’s enemies to have been instigated by him.Som.

The initiative in the borough lay with the owners of the nine capital burgages assigned to the bailiffs, two of whom, in rotation, named the returning officer. Between 1705 and 1780 the Medlycott family, who owned four of them, shared control with the successive owners of the other five. The two parties fell out, so there were contests in 1772 and 1774, but in 1780 Edward Walter was duped by government into selling his five burgages to Thomas Hutchings Medlycott.

Ilchester’s unsavoury reputation as a venal borough continued in this period: as a local innkeeper put it, ‘damn me if Ilchester is worth living in without there are hang-fairs and good elections’. After the death of the patron Thomas Lockyer in 1785, control of the borough was contested until 1806.

John, 4th Earl Poulett, chosen recorder of the borough in succession to his father in 1788, entered upon a very uneasy electoral inheritance. The sitting Members, both friends of Pitt’s government like himself, were uncertain of their future. Robert Thornton, whom Poulett claimed to have sponsored, was supported by some of the corporation for the recordership in competition with his patron.

Since 1780 the corporation had returned Lord Bayham, son of their recorder Lord Camden, who regarded his heir’s seat as safe as long as he lived,Camden mss, Camden to his daughter Frances Stewart, 4 Dec. 1784. with Abel Moysey, an influential corporator, who voted with opposition. The latter had managed to foil an attempt to bring in Pitt, the prime minister, whose father had sat for Bath, in conjunction with Bayham, in 1784.