Staffordshire

Newcastle wrote about Lichfield in his electoral survey of March 1754: ‘Lord Gower and Lord Anson to name by agreement for seven years.’ This statement anticipates their success. The borough had a complicated franchise; Gower and Anson had systematically bought up freeholds and burgages, and created faggot votes by splitting freeholds and granting annuities. But there was a strong independent party, and it was not until 1762 that they gained control of the borough.J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parlty. Hist. ii.

Stafford was an expensive and difficult constituency, with an electorate composed mostly of tradesmen.See the analysis of the poll book of 1765 in J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parlty. Hist. ii. 278-9. About 1754 it was under the patronage of the Chetwynds of Ingestre Hall, but by 1774 they had lost all their interest. ‘No Cornish borough is more venal’, wrote Josiah Wedgwood, the potter, in 1780;Ibid. 301. and Robinson in 1783 described the borough as ‘very open’.

Tamworth was regarded as a close borough. Since 1765 a compromise to return a Member each had been in operation between the Manor interest and the Castle interest; the former (and more powerful) was in the hands of Thomas Thynne, 3rd Viscount Weymouth (created in 1789 Marquess of Bath) and the latter maintained by George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend.

Stafford, which acknowledged no patron, was a constant drain on the purses of its Members, thanks to the size of the electorate, among whom journeymen shoemakers predominated. But money was not enough to maintain an interest there. Sheridan found the service of Joshua Drewry, editor of the Staffordshire Advertiser, useful. He came to grief in 1806 and in 1812, although he was inclined to attribute his failure in the latter election to the want of funds rather than admit that it was his neglect of his constituents that had caused it.

Newcastle was considered to be a close borough of the 1st Marquess of Stafford and was so listed by the Treasury before the elections of 1790 and 1796. He secured it by cultivating the corporation and tradesmen and by letting his property rent free for five, ten or 15 years. But whereas there had been only one contest between 1734 and 1790, there were no less than eight in this period—with a minimum of four days’ polling and of over 500 voters. Nearly a third of the electorate was composed of feltmakers (journeyman hatters), the majority of whom voted against the marquess’s nominees.

In an interview with Buonaparte on Elba in 1814, Vernon, one of the Lichfield Members, was asked ‘about my seat in Parliament, what place I represented, what was the right of voting, what the number of my constituents and whether any and what influence preponderated among them’.Philbiblon Soc. Misc. viii. 11. Although Lichfield was classed as an open borough, control of it had been shared since 1747 by the Ansons of Shugborough and the Leveson Gowers of Trentham. The combination was opposed until 1761, but tightened its hold thereafter. Oldfield commented in 1792:

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.