Honiton had a reputation for shameless venality and was the ruin of at least three of its Members in this period. In 1790 the strongest single interest was that of Sir George Yonge, secretary at war in Pitt’s administration, whose family’s parliamentary connexion with the borough, based on their neighbouring property but sustained by money, went back for over a century.
Exeter’s period of high commercial prosperity ended with the decline of the Devon cloth industry from the mid 18th century. Largely untouched by the industrial revolution, it retained the traditional life and social structure of a cathedral city and provincial capital, rooted in rural society.See W. G. Hoskins, Industry, Trade and People in Exeter, 1688-1800 and R. Newton, Victorian Exeter . As a constituency it was open but expensive.
Rose’s comment on Dartmouth in 1810, that ‘the interest of the borough is exclusively in the Holdsworth family’,Add. 49185, f. 55. would have been applicable at any time between 1722 and 1832. Although their influence, based on control of the corporation and thereby of the election of freemen, had generally been exercised in the 18th century on behalf of successive governments, with the right of recommendation to local customs posts and offices connected with the castle as the quid pro quo, the choice of Members rested with them and not with the Treasury.
Bere Alston, a village of about 40 houses, was completely under the control of Algernon Percy, 1st Earl of Beverley, the second son of the 1st Duke of Northumberland, on whose death in 1786 he had inherited the lordship of the manor. Beaumont was probably a paying guest. Beverley successively replaced the Mitford brothers, his second cousins, with his first and fourth sons, bringing in the former as soon as he came of age in 1799, and the latter, aged 22, in 1806.
In 1816 Oldfield wrote of Barnstaple: ‘If any one borough in the country is more corrupt than another it is this. The expenses of a candidate at a contested election here, is from ten to thirteen thousand pounds.’Rep. Hist. iii. 300. While this was a gross exaggeration, there can be no doubt that money was the key to the borough and that corruption grew steadily worse during this period.
Ashburton had been jointly controlled since the 1760s by George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford, and Sir Robert Palk, a native of the town who had become governor of Madras. Each owned a moiety of the lordship of the manor and commanded about a third of the votes, with Orford having perhaps slightly the stronger interest of the two. There was no contest, apart from the sham fight of 1784, between 1761 and 1831, when the independent interest in the town, so long quiescent, was stimulated by the Reform crisis to make its presence felt.
Since 1780 the corporation nominee, Edward Coke of Longford, had joined interests with the 5th Duke of Devonshire, whose nomination to one seat at least was long established and who returned his brother. Both Members were Foxite Whigs, but neither voted for parliamentary reform in 1793, despite a petition from Derby in its favour (6 May). At the election of 1796 a local physician of means, Peter Crompton, standing as a reformer, made no impact against them, though he was said to have great influence on the corporation.Jnl.
Cockermouth remained a pocket borough of the Lowther family until 1832. James, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, usually returned personal adherents, but when Sir William Lowther succeeded to his electoral influence he frequently placed a seat at the disposal first of the Pittites and later of administration.
Since 1761 the main theme of Carlisle politics had been the bid of James Lowther, Earl of Lonsdale, to monopolize the representation through control of the corporation. He was opposed in turn by the Duke of Portland, by the Earl of Carlisle and by the Duke of Norfolk, who relied on the independent local gentry opposed to the Lowther interest and the lower order of voters, ever eager for a contest.
The Boscawens of nearby Tregothnan, Viscounts Falmouth, were recorders and patrons of Truro. In 1788 George Evelyn, 3rd Viscount, reached a compromise with Sir Francis Basset, who had been contesting the borough since 1780, whereby Basset agreed to leave him in peace at Truro in exchange for the purchase of Falmouth’s property at Tregony. After this there was no contest until 1818, but it did not mean that Falmouth was secure.
