Borough

At the accession of George I Dunwich was a decayed but independent borough, contested by Suffolk landowners, at great expense. In 1721 Sir George Downing, who had lost his seat in 1715 but recovered it in 1722, estimated that not ‘less than £5,000 would carry it for the person who should be his partner’; one of the sitting Members, Charles Long, was said to be prepared to pay the same sum rather than lose the seat, and the other, Sir Robert Rich, to be offering £50 a vote.A. Bence to Ld. Strafford, 5 Dec. 1721, Add. 22248, f. 131.

From 1705 to 1747 the representation of Bury was almost monopolized by its hereditary high steward, John Hervey, 1st Earl of Bristol, seated at Ickworth, three miles from the borough, which he had represented from 1694 till he was raised to the peerage in 1703. With one exception, the Members during this period consisted of his sons, his brother-in-law, his wife’s cousin, and the recorder, whose father had married a Hervey.

Aldeburgh was dependent on its fishing and shipbuilding industries. Elections were controlled by the corporation, through their right of creating freemen. The Members returned were wealthy strangers, who were expected to spend money on the borough, and government nominees, to secure Customs and Admiralty patronage.

The chief interests in Tamworth at George I’s accession were those of Thomas Willoughby, 1st Lord Middleton, high steward of Tamworth, whose estate of Middleton was 4½ miles from the borough; of Baroness Ferrers, the owner of Tamworth Castle, who in 1716 married James, Lord Compton, later 5th Earl of Northampton; and of the 2nd Viscount Weymouth, aged 4, owner of Drayton manor, two miles from Tamworth.

In 1715 Walter and William Chetwynd, two Whigs, whose family seat, Ingestre Hall, was less than five miles from Stafford, were returned unopposed. In 1716 the corporation petitioned against the septennial bill as ‘overturning our present constitution and an infringement of our liberties’.CJ, xviii.

At George I’s accession the chief interest at Newcastle-under-Lyme was in Lord Gower, the head of the Staffordshire Tories, who owned a large part of the town, where one seat was usually held by a member of his family. Except in 1715, when two Whigs were returned on petition, and in 1722 and 1734, when one of the seats was held by Whigs, all the Members were Tories till 1744 when Lord Gower went over to the Administration.

There was no predominant influence at Lichfield. Contests were frequent and sometimes turbulent owing to a strong and aggressive Jacobite element in the town. In 1715 Chetwynd, a Whig, and Hill, a moderate Tory, defeated two high Tories.

Elections at Wells were controlled by the corporation, a Tory body, who could manipulate the franchise by creating honorary freemen and through the power of the mayor as returning officer to decide who was entitled to vote. At every election but that of 1741, which was compromised, there was a contest on party lines, resulting in the return of the opposition candidates, followed by a petition from the unsuccessful government candidates, alleging partiality and malpractices on the part of the returning officer.

In 1715 two Tories were re-elected against two Whigs after a violent contest.J. Toulmin, Taunton, 315. Petitions alleging partiality by the mayor as returning officer in accepting unqualified Tory votes were heard on eleven days at the bar of the House, who awarded the seats to the Whig candidates, rejecting a motion, presumably in the interests of the sitting Members, that

At the beginning of the eighteenth century both Minehead seats were controlled by the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, Tories, through their right as lords of the manor to appoint the constables, who acted as returning officers. Their monopoly of the representation was resented by a section of the inhabitants, who took advantage of the minority of Alexander Luttrell to raise an opposition to the castle interest.