Borough

Henry Pelham Clinton, 2nd Duke of Newcastle and high steward of the borough, had had to be satisfied since 1768 with the nomination of one Member for Retford, supported by the Pink party on the corporation, whereas his predecessor had named both. The other seat, in the hands of the ‘independent’ or Blue interest, was held from 1780 to 1790 by a local landowner, Sir Wharton Amcotts, a friend of the 3rd Duke of Portland. In 1790 he stood down in favour of his son-in-law, Sir John Ingilby, who was regarded as a ministerialist and did not seek Portland’s blessing. There was no contest. Maj.

Newcastle was represented throughout the period by local landed gentlemen whose family wealth had been made in Newcastle trade, and who remained respected figures in the town and leaders of its business community. A Whig-Tory compromise and the expense of transporting non-resident freemen from various parts of the country discouraged contests.

Until 1802 Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, returned two Members unchallenged for Morpeth. The party of independent freemen which had threatened Carlisle’s family interest earlier in the century was checked by a policy of careful management which combined charity payments to the poorer voters with a limitation on the size of the freeman electorate through control of the organs of local government.J. M. Fewster, ‘The Pols. and Admin. of the Borough of Morpeth in the later 18th Cent.’ (Durham Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1960), ch.

The expense of maintaining an electoral interest at Berwick proved beyond all contenders during this period and it was increasingly regarded as an open, but venal, borough ‘almost as famous for its elections, as for its smocks and its salmon’. In 1784 the two leading interests represented by Lt.-Gen. John Vaughan (Lord Lisburne’s brother) and John Hussey Delaval had retained their hold, but on Delaval’s obtaining a peerage as a reward for going over to government in 1786, the ministerial nominee was defeated by a Whig, Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto.

Earl Fitzwilliam, the principal property owner, was unopposed parliamentary patron of this open borough throughout the period. He described Peterborough in 1796 as ‘a place where we have no trouble, but where we always pay great attention’. French Laurence, after his return, informed his patron, 16 Nov.

Despite its large electorate which increased during this period to over 1,300 voters and included a strong dissenting component, Northampton went to the poll only three times: the balance of interests and the memory of the ruinously expensive contest of 1768 were sufficient to discourage protracted struggles.Oldfield, Boroughs, i. 427; Add. 51573, Smith to Lady Holland, Tues.

Higham Ferrers was, to quote Oldfield, ‘under the sole influence and at the entire disposal of Earl Fitzwilliam; on which account a contest for the representation never happens’.Oldfield, Boroughs, i. 434. There was no contest between 1724 and 1832, when the borough was disfranchised.

No attempt was made in this period to seduce the corporation of Brackley from their patron Francis, 3rd Duke of Bridgwater, whose family the Egertons had been associated with the borough for nearly two centuries. The duke returned his cousin and coheir John William Egerton, and Samuel Haynes, the latter’s father-in-law, again in 1790: like him they were supporters of Pitt’s administration. Haynes retired late in 1802 in favour of the duke’s canal agent Bradshaw.

The 3rd Duke of Grafton, seated four miles away at Euston, was recorder of this corporation borough and his family had controlled it unopposed throughout the century. Since 1784, however, he had been politically less active and had no member of his immediate family whom he wished to return. In 1790, when one of his nominees died on the eve of dissolution and the other retired, his nomination to both seats was successfully challenged by the Catholic peer, Robert Edward, 9th Baron Petre.

Municipal politics continued to play an important part in Norwich parliamentary electionsB. D. Hayes ‘Pols. in Norf. 1750-1832’ (Camb. Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1957), 55, 234. The freeholder vote, much of it in the ‘country’, constituted about one-fifth of the electorate. and at times candidates for the corporation spent not much less than parliamentary candidates (about £4,000).Ibid. 432; Add. 37885, f.