Borough

The fluctuating relationships among three interests made Poole difficult to manage and there had been contests since 1765. The oligarchy of Newfoundland merchants and the local gentry who vied for influence on the corporation having had recourse to government, particularly to the Admiralty, to tip the scales, had instigated a triangle of chicanery from which there proved to be no escape. The defeat of Joseph Gulston in 1784 and his subsequent death leaving his affairs in disarray eliminated that interest.

The 9th and 10th Earls of Westmorland remained in complete control of Lyme from 1784, when opposition to them had last been attempted, until 1832, invariably returning members of their family.

Of the electoral situation in the borough, John Crane, a local physician friendly to Pitt’s administration wrote to Lord Grenville (25 Feb. 1790):Fortescue mss; PRO 30/8/127, f. 19; 331, ff. 7, 9.

The agreement whereby the Bond and Bankes families returned a Member each during this period was disturbed only by the accidents of family history. Thus on Nathaniel Bond’s retirement in 1807, as there was no member of the family desirous of his seat, it went to a neighbouring country gentleman, Peter William Baker. On the latter’s death in 1815, as there was still no Bond available, the Bankes family were given custody of the seat for one of themselves until John Bond junior came of age in 1823.

Bridport defied management. Charles Sturt, whose family interest enabled him to return himself and a fellow Whig in 1784, had to cede one seat in 1790, although it was thought he might ‘by a little exertion recover the whole’. The new Member, Watson the recorder, was the champion of the dissenting majority on the corporation, at that time well disposed to Pitt’s ministry.

Electoral influence was exercised at Totnes through the corporation, which had the power of creating freemen. A large municipal debt, which became increasingly unmanageable during the 18th century, was an important factor in ensuring the corporation’s subservience to beneficent patrons, either men of their own number or neighbouring landowners.PP (1835), xxiii. 641-5; P.

Since the bitter struggle of 1765 Tiverton had been under the joint control of Nathaniel Ryder, 1st Baron Harrowby, and his ally Sir John Duntze, an Exeter merchant and banker. The Ryders had no property in Tiverton, but their interest was the stronger of the two. It dated from the 1730s and was founded on and sustained by the provision of civil, military and ecclesiastical patronage for members of the corporation and their families and by loans and gifts to local tradesmen, especially during the wartime dislocation of the woollen trade.

Tavistock remained completely under the control of the Whig dukes of Bedford, who returned members of their family and political friends.

Plympton remained under the joint control of the 1st (d.1795) and 2nd Earls of Mount Edgcumbe, successively recorders of the borough, and the Treby family, its largest property owners, whose head from 1783 to 1832 was Paul Treby Treby (formerly Ourry) of Goodamoor. Between them they dominated the corporation, which enjoyed the power of creating freemen, most of whom were non-resident gentry. Both patrons sold their seats.

In 1792 Oldfield described Plymouth as an Admiralty borough; in 1816 as under the patronage of the Prince Regent.Hist. Boroughs. i. 236; Rep. Hist. iii. 290. Neither description does justice to the complex electoral history of Plymouth in this period, embracing as it does a number of confusing episodes which the available material does not fully explain.