Rye was managed by giving the corporation posts in the customs service, with which this stagnant port was well provided, having in 1729 a collector, a deputy collector, and twenty other officers.S. H. Nulle, The Duke of Newcastle, 40 n. 2. Under George I and George II the patronage was administered through Sir John Norris and Phillips Gybbon, who had been adopted by the corporation as their patrons, sharing the representation till their deaths in 1749 and 1762.
Under George I the New Romney corporation returned neighbouring Whig landowners without opposition. The first contest occurred in 1727, when one of the late Members, David Papillon, partnered by John Essington, defeated the other, Sir Robert Furnese, partnered by Sir Robert Austen, only to be unseated in favour of their opponents by the House of Commons on a petition alleging that the mayor, John Coates, as returning officer had
Hythe was controlled by the Duke of Dorset, lord warden of the Cinque Ports, who used the patronage of that office and of the Treasury to support his private interest.Namier & Brooke, i. 447. His son, the second Duke, wrote of Hythe to the Duke of Grafton in 1767:
My father for many years contested it while parties ran high, with the Tories of that place; he by degree established his interest in it, and the Whigs prevailed.Germain mss.
Under George I and George II Hastings was managed for the Government by the Duke of Newcastle, who used the Treasury patronage to support his private interest, as the owner of the castle, lordship, and rape of Hastings. From 1733 he employed as his local manager an influential member of the corporation, John Collier, who converted Hastings into a Treasury borough, where Newcastle nominated both Members so long as he remained in office.
The chief interests in Dover were those of the Whig corporation; of the Government, based on the local customs and admiralty services; of the Duke of Dorset, for most of the period lord warden of the Cinque Ports; and of two neighbouring rival Whig families, the Papillons and the Furneses. In 1715 Philip Papillon, who had sat for Dover since 1701, was returned unopposed with another Whig, Admiral Aylmer, M.P. Dover 1697-1713. On Aylmer’s death the Duke of Dorset put up George Berkeley, who wrote to his brother, then first lord of the Admiralty, August 1720:
York was a large independent borough, returning wealthy Yorkshire landowners, usually with civic connexions. Outstanding among these were the Robinsons of Newby and the Thompsons of Marston, who between them virtually monopolized one of the York seats from the Restoration to Walpole’s fall. The corporation and the archbishop had a considerable influence. Contested elections were very expensive: in 1746 Sir Thomas Robinson, on being invited to put up for York on his family’s interest
Thirsk was a complete pocket borough, belonging to the Franklands of Thirkleby.
In 1715 the chief interests at Scarborough were in John Hungerford, a Tory lawyer, and William Thompson, a Whig country gentleman, who shared the representation of the borough without opposition from 1702 to 1722. The Government had a considerable influence from the customs and the ordnance.
At George I’s accession the sitting Members for Ripon were John Aislabie of Studley Royal, Whig, and his relation by marriage, John Sharpe, son of the Archbishop of York, a Tory, who had shared the representation without opposition since 1705. In 1715 Aislabie owned about 40 burgages, having spent over £5000 on purchases, while Sharpe owned 11 out of some 180. At the general election that year Sharpe was defeated by Lord Castlecomer, a neighbouring Whig landowner, supported by Aislabie, who headed the poll.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the chief interests in Richmond were those of Lord Wharton and the Yorkes of Richmond, who shared the representation. After Wharton’s death, Lord Holdernesse, the head of the Whig interest in the North Riding, put up his brother, Conyers Darcy, with a promise from Lord Sunderland ‘to procure a thousand pounds as an inducement to Mr. Yorke to come into our interest’.Conyers Darcy to Newcastle, 29 May 1721, Sunderland (Blenheim) mss. On 21 Oct. 1721 Holdernesse reported to Sunderland:
