Staffordshire

<p>Uniquely, the borough of Tamworth straddled two counties: the larger part, including the castle, lay in Warwickshire; the smaller, including the church, in Staffordshire. As a consequence, a writ from each sheriff was necessary for an election to be held. The dominant interest belonged to Viscount Weymouth (Thomas Thynne†) who held the manors of Drayton and Tamworth and had a local rent-roll worth over £3,000 p.a.

<p>Stafford, the county town, had seen considerable electoral manoeuvrings during the Restoration period but no actual polling of rival candidates. In 1690, however, there was a challenge to the more Whiggish of the outgoing Members, Philip Foley, from a Tory, Jonathan Cope I, which resulted in a poll. All three candidates were local gentlemen, but John Chetwynd, who topped the poll, had the support of the corporation. The real contest was for the other seat and here the role of the mayor, as the returning officer, proved vital.

<p>Newcastle-under-Lyme was a small market town governed by a corporation consisting of a mayor and 24 capital burgesses which was able to exercise considerable political influence through its regulatory powers over trade and its control over the franchise. However, these powers were insufficient to wrest the parliamentary representation of the borough away from the neighbouring gentry, particularly those families with property in the town such as the Leveson Gowers of Trentham.

<p>Lichfield had been made a county in its own right by a charter of 1553, hence the inclusion of a freeholder franchise. The government rested with two bailiffs, a sheriff and 21 brethren, although the cathedral close, effectively separated from the town by ‘pools’, was outside lay jurisdiction. Contemporary observers seem to have disagreed about its condition, Sir John Perceval, 5th Bt.†, noting in 1701 that little was manufactured there except for woollen caps, whereas Defoe detected a flourishing cloth trade 20 years later.

<p>In 1754 two men had an important interest at Tamworth: Lord Weymouth, owner of Drayton Manor, two miles from Tamworth, and <a href="/landingpage/58978" title="George Townshend" class="link">George Townshend</a>, owner of the castle. Of lesser importance were Sir Robert Burdett and Simon Luttrell. Burdett, of an old Warwickshire family, M.P. for Tamworth since 1748, had the support of those who feared aristocratic domination.

<p>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.<fn>J. C. Wedgwood, <em>Staffs. Parlty. Hist.</em> ii.

<p>Stafford was an expensive and difficult constituency, with an electorate composed mostly of tradesmen.<fn>See the analysis of the poll book of 1765 in J. C. Wedgwood, <em>Staffs. Parlty. Hist.</em> ii. 278-9.</fn> 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;<fn>Ibid. 301.</fn> and Robinson in 1783 described the borough as ‘very open’.</p>

<p>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 <a href="/landingpage/" title="George Townshend" class="crossvolume">George Townshend</a>, 1st Marquess Townshend.

<p>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 <em>Staffordshire Advertiser</em>, 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.