Whitchurch, described by one visitor in 1679 as a ‘poor thoroughfare town’, lay at the junction of the roads between London and Andover, and between Newbury and Winchester, at a crossing of the River Test. HMC 13th Rep. ii. 286; VCH Hants, iv.
Portsmouth, located at the south-west corner of Portsea Island, lay at the mouth of a large natural harbour. The town’s strategic significance was reflected in the fact that it was walled, and contained Portchester Castle, situated across the bay from the equally important Southsea Castle. To the north of Portsmouth lay the vital royal dockyard. J.
The Isle of Wight, with an economy dominated by pastoral agriculture, was traditionally and administratively a part of Hampshire, although it possessed a somewhat distinct community with a clearly-defined group of gentry families, many of whom inclined towards royalism in the 1640s. This probably helps explain why Charles I sought sanctuary there on his escape from parliamentarian captivity. The island held its own sessions of the peace with its own justices, and operated its own house of correction.
Winchester, located in the valley of the River Itchen amid chalk down lands, could claim to be one of the country’s most ancient and important towns. Anglo-Saxon royal capital and centre of administration, and still the county town, it boasted a cathedral which was the seat of England’s richest bishopric, a royal palace which was used until the sixteenth century, a castle, and the prestigious college founded by William of Wykeham. It had also been the seat of the earliest Parliaments.
At George I’s accession the chief interests at Yarmouth were in two local landowners, Anthony Morgan, a Whig, and Henry Holmes, a Tory. In 1715 Holmes and another Tory, Sir Robert Raymond, defeated Morgan and another Whig, Sir Theodore Janssen, who petitioned on the ground that 27 of their opponents’ voters were unqualified, under a by-law passed by the corporation in 1670 providing that no new members should be admitted unless the mayor and five other members, known as chief burgesses, were present.
During the first ten years of this period Yarmouth was controlled by Thomas Holmes (created in 1760 Baron Holmes in the Irish peerage), and managed by him on behalf of Government. There was an anti-Holmes party in the Isle of Wight, headed by Sir Thomas Worsley and Lord Carnarvon; and when Holmes died in July 1764 they hoped to take over from him. But the appointment of governor of the Isle of Wight was given to Hans Stanley, who was committed to neither side.
At George I’s accession the chief interest in Newtown was that of the Worsleys, Tories, who in alliance with other burgage holders, notably the Holmes family, had held both seats since 1705. In 1715 Sir Robert Worsley and his cousin, James Worsley, were returned unopposed, as was his brother, Charles, in conjunction with another Tory, William Stephens, recommended by Henry Holmes, in 1722.T.
In 1715 the Newport seats were filled by Anthony Morgan, a government supporter, and William Stephens, a local Tory landowner, without opposition, though Morgan, who had been appointed lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight after George I’s accession, tried to persuade the Government to put up a second candidate, assuring them that ’it will be an easy matter to bring in two Whigs at that corporation’.T. Stephens, The Castle Builders, 41. At all subsequent elections both seats were filled on the recommendation of the Administration without a contest. On 30 Jan.