The local ‘gentlemen of fortune’ continued to represent Shrewsbury throughout this period. None of them could command the representation, although Sir William Pulteney of Shrewsbury Castle was perfectly secure in his seat until his death in 1805.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii. 29; Rep. Hist. iv. 375. The other seat had been held since 1784 by John Hill, the younger brother of the county Member Sir Richard, who possessed a strong interest in the borough.
The Clive family had absorbed by purchase (1770) and subsequently by marriage (1784) the interest of the Herberts of Powis Castle at Ludlow. They returned one Member from 1790 to 1806 and both thereafter. Richard Payne Knight, the other Member, a local country gentleman with a seat six miles away, had been introduced in 1784 with Lord Powis’s concurrence rather than, as Oldfield would have it, ‘on the independent interest of the town’.Salop RO, Ludlow corpn. mss 356, Davies to Kinnersley, 20 Dec. 1783, Salway to same, 9 Jan. 1784; Oldfield, Hist. Boroughs, ii.
The Whitmore family of Apley, recorders of Bridgnorth continuously since 1747, who had, as Pitt was informed in 1795, ‘represented the borough from the strongest natural interest for many generations’, returned one Member throughout this period; and both in 1820, not for the first time. Isaac Hawkins Browne, who had headed the poll in the contest of 1784, was a neighbouring country gentleman connected with the Birmingham industrial interest, whom the Whitmores accepted readily as their colleague. In 1790 a joint address was issued, ‘to preclude even the shadow of an opposition’.
Bishop’s Castle was the only pocket borough in Shropshire where the patron’s hold was effectively challenged and, briefly, undermined in this period. Since 1768 it had been in the pocket of the Clive family, the principal proprietors in the borough; and the Treasury classed it as a ‘close’ borough in 1795 (though not in 1788). In 1790 Edward, Lord Clive again returned his uncle and former mentor, William Clive of Styche, with Henry Strachey, another old friend and connexion of the family.
The representation of the university was a much coveted honour reserved time out of mind for ‘that good old sort ... an independent country gentleman, a true friend to Church and King, unconnected with any party, of a good old family’. In this respect Oxford was anxious not to ‘sink’ to the level of Cambridge, where ministerial influence was held to prevail, and looked to Midland squires ‘like the Palmers, the Pages, the Newdigates, the Dolbens’ for its Members.
Oxford was one of the larger freeman boroughs: in 1796 890 voted in three days, in 1802 1,186 in three days, in 1806 1,353 in six days, in 1812 1,538 in nine days and in 1818 1,143 in 4 days. In 1790 it was claimed that ‘the non-resident voters ... comprise above a moiety of the electors, of which almost 300 reside in and about London, a very great number at Bristol, Witney, Abingdon, Birmingham etc. etc. who will support the person who will oppose the chamber and they will be very considerably aided in the city’.Portland mss Pw2F15; Add. 37880, f. 197; VCH Oxon. iv.
Woodstock, ‘adjoining to the wall of Blenheim park’, had offered no opposition to the dukes of Marlborough’s patronage since 1727.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii. 23; Rep. Hist. iv. 362. The 4th Duke continued to nominate members of his family and friends, expecting them, like himself, to support the government of the day. His neighbour and connexion by marriage Sir Henry Watkin Dashwood, a ruined man who had to be in Parliament, was Member from 1784 until 1820. The other seat was intended for his family, if and when eligible.
The North family, seated at Wroxton nearby, had controlled the corporation and named the Member since 1740. By 1784 their hold was so weakened that it was reported that ‘Lord North has been very nearly shaken at Banbury, and upon a poll would have carried it only by one’.Rutland mss, Sydney to Rutland 5 Apr. 1784. Nevertheless the Treasury regarded it as a close borough and no opposition was made to the ex-premier in 1790; or, when he succeeded as 2nd Earl of Guilford, to his son later that year; or on his death in 1792.
The corporation of Nottingham formed a self-perpetuating Whig and dissenting oligarchy which resisted all government except its own, acknowledging no patron. At the same time it made little attempt, until 1803, to manipulate the freemen, who in the last resort were reassured by its resistance to the enclosure of the common lands in which they were entitled to a stake, a resistance which however, cooped up a steadily increasing population.
On the face of it, the pact in operation since 1715, whereby the dukes of Newcastle and the Suttons of Kelham returned a Member each, was maintained in 1805 when the Sutton interest lapsed and was replaced by that of the 6th Baron Middleton, whose forebears had formerly intervened in borough elections. A fourth interested party, Sir Jenison William Gordon, 2nd Bt., was a consenting party to these arrangements.Nottingham Univ. Lib. Newcastle mss NeC 2672, 6580. But Newark remained, after all, an open borough with a sizeable electorate.
