Commons 1790-1820

Portsmouth’s previous character as an Admiralty borough had been thoroughly undermined by 1783, when it was clear that Sir John Carter, leader in succession to his father John Carter (d.1794) of the independent party in the corporation, most of them religious dissenters like himself, was virtually patron, the borough remaining a close one. He guaranteed the return of Fetherstonhaugh, son of a former Member for the borough and, rather than endanger his hold, ceded to the ‘madness of the day’ in 1784 when Adm.

William Jolliffe had succeeded his father John Jolliffe as sole patron of Petersfield in 1771, and after 1774 was unchallenged until his death in 1802, when his son Hylton Jolliffe succeeded him. Both returned themselves for one seat and took guests for the other. Their choice of guests was connected with their political vagaries, but they were not necessarily returnedgratis.

The franchise at Newtown was vested in 33 burgage tenures, some of them split, so that there were 39 potential voters. It was, however, a close borough.

Oldfield’s analysis of the corporation in 1792 showed how completely it was under the control of the patron, Rev. Leonard Holmes (formerly Troughear) who had inherited it from his maternal uncle Thomas Holmes, Baron Holmes [I], in 1764. Holmes had not been seriously challenged since 1768, but there was a domestic contest in 1784 and his nominees in 1790 both attended their election, as well as paying £4,200 each for the honour.

Since 1774 this close borough had been controlled solely by Sir Harry Burrard, 1st Bt., of Walhampton. On his death in 1791, control passed to the sitting Members, his nephew and heir Harry (known from 1795 as Sir Harry Neale) and to his other nephew and namesake. The latter then vacated his seat and resumed it only as a stopgap in 1802. The cousins disposed of that seat to guests, and Neale of his own seat when he did not wish to sit. On Burrard’s death in 1813, his interest devolved on Neale’s brother George.

Edward Hooper, the veteran patron of this close borough, had for many years returned his kinsmen James Harris and his son James Harris. After the death of the former in 1780, he returned friends of government. In 1788 James Harris the younger, whom Hooper had named as his heir, was called to the Upper House as Lord Malmesbury and, there being no member of the family available for substitution, Hooper nominated Hans Sloane at his request.

The Wallops, earls of Portsmouth, seated at nearby Hurstbourne Park, named one Member from their family circle virtually throughout the 18th century; and since 1768 Joshua Iremonger, residing even nearer at Wherwell, had returned his half-brother Lethieullier for the other seat. There had been no contest since 1774, and although the Treasury listed the borough as open before the election of 1790 they classified it as close before that of 1796. Close it remained, but not in the same co-patrons.

The death of James, 3rd Duke of Chandos, on 29 Sept. 1789, opened a new chapter in county politics. Robert Thistlethwayte, Chandos’s protégé, announced his intended retirement. The initiative did not pass to Chandos’s former rival, Harry, 6th Duke of Bolton, though Pitt admitted to George Rose apropos of Bolton’s son-in-law: ‘We cannot appear to put a negative on Orde if the principal interests of the county are inclined to him’. By this he meant that the country gentry were the final arbiters and would react strongly to dictation, whether by government or aristocracy.

Oldfield commented in 1816 that Tewkesbury was ‘not subject to the control of a patron’ and its electors were ‘as free from improper influence as the defective state of our representation will admit’.Rep. Hist. iii. 493. Electoral influence was exercised through the corporation, who looked for Members among the neighbouring landowners. Although Tewkesbury was untainted by the cruder forms of bribery, it could be expensive. Members were expected to provide gifts or loans for municipal purposes and entertainment bills were sometimes high.

In 1780 and 1784 the Whig corporation, which had the power to create freemen and owned extensive property in the city, combined with the 11th Duke of Norfolk, who had an estate nearby, to return both Members, though one of them, Sir Charles Barrow, was nominally independent. On Barrow’s death early in 1789, they put up Norfolk’s cousin Henry Thomas Howard of Thornbury Castle, near Bristol.