Old Sarum, a depopulated pocket borough, was the property of Thomas Pitt, 1st Lord Camelford, in whose family it had been since 1692. He returned supporters of his kinsman Pitt’s administration. On his death in 1793 his heir was a minor and subsequently abroad for several years, so his widow and other trustees had the nomination of the Members.
Marlborough was described by Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury, to his son Lord Bruce in 1802, as ‘a friendly borough’. Friendly to him, seated five miles away, it certainly was, for his nominees, most of them members of his family, were returned without demur. As at Great Bedwyn, he had only to make his choice and fix his terms. The corporation, nominally 20 in number, had long been reduced to a dozen and consisted of a mere handful of reliable supporters in this period.Ailesbury mss, Ailesbury to Bruce, 23 June 1802; Geo. III Corresp. iv. 3428; Oldfield, Rep.
Malmesbury was completely controlled by Dr Edmund Wilkins, the local apothecary and receiver-general, as high steward of the borough, between 1775 and his death in May 1804. He retained ten of the corporation for an annuity of £30 against the security of a £500 bond from each of them. From 1789 he expected his paying guests to support Pitt’s administration, which in 1792 paid him £269 17s. out of the secret service fund on account of the election. Paul Benfield was required to vacate in 1792 after acting with opposition.
In 1790 the Selwyn control of Ludgershall was challenged for the first time since 1747. George Selwyn had long neglected ‘that beggarly place’, as he contemptuously termed the borough, and now Thomas Everett, a London banker of local origins, who owned a number of freeholds at Ludgershall and had purchased the Biddesden estate, put up his banking partners, John Drummond and his brother. They were not successful, but Selwyn realized that he would hand on a ‘diminished interest’ to his heir, Viscount Sydney.
Hindon had been much contested in the second half of the 18th century, but by 1790 the borough, still listed as ‘open’ by the Treasury, was firmly in the hands of two patrons, William Beckford of Fonthill and Sir Henry Gough Calthorpe (created Baron Calthorpe in 1796). Each patron recommended one Member, without opposition, between 1790 and 1820.
At the beginning of this period William Pierce Ashe A ’Court owned 16 burgages at Heytesbury and the 4th Duke of Marlborough the other ten. These patrons had nominated a Member each since 1772. The borough remained close.J. A. Cannon, ‘Borough of Heytesbury in the 18th Cent.’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. lvii. 223. Marlborough returned relatives and friends. A ’Court, a Portland Whig, returned himself only as a stopgap and took paying guests.
In 1766 Great Bedwyn came under the complete control of Lord Bruce (subsequently 1st Earl of Ailesbury), when he purchased Lord Verney’s 46 burgages. Bruce already owned as many himself and bought two more in 1787; when he obtained the nine church burgages under the Bedwyn Enclosure Act of 1792 he was in possession of all but one.Wilts. Arch. Mag. vi.
Since 1774 there had been a struggle for control of this close borough between Robert Shafto and the earls of Radnor, as coheirs of the Duncombe interest.J. A. Cannon, ‘The Parl. Rep. of six Wilts. Boroughs 1754-90’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1958) i. 143-68. The contenders were evenly balanced: Shafto owned a slight majority of the burgages, but the 2nd Earl of Radnor secured the right to name the returning officer and this gave him the edge in the contests of 1790 and 1796.
In 1790 the Devizes corporation was under the prevailing influence of the leading clothier and former Member, James Sutton, whose brother-in-law Henry Addington was both recorder and Member; and of the London merchant Joshua Smith, whose residence was at Erlestoke, three miles away. In 1805, on Addington’s elevation to the peerage, Sutton’s brother-in-law was replaced by his son-in-law, a member of the corporation who, as Addington expected, was ‘chosen unanimously’.PRO 30/8/107, f. 160. But Smith’s retirement in 1818 occasioned a contest.
As a result of the extension of the franchise to freeholders in neighbouring hundreds in 1782, Cricklade came to resemble a county seat, with the local gentry jockeying for its representation.Materials for a Hist. of Cricklade ed. Thomson, ch. vi. Thus in 1790 two local gentlemen pledged to independence were again returned, sponsored by the two county Members, who lived within the hundreds. They had been adopted at Marlborough, well outside the constituency, on 17 June and this was deplored by their opponent Samuel Petrie, who had applied to Pitt for support, 13 Mar.
