‘Perfect quietness’ was not to be expected at elections for Lewes, where the electorate more than doubled in this period.Add. 33109, f. 71; 33129, f. 359; The Times, 21 July 1802; Town Bk. of Lewes 1702-1837 (Suss. Rec. Soc. lxix), 221. Thomas Pelham, Baron Pelham (created Earl of Chichester in 1801) had since 1774 been content to return one Member and found it prudent to recommend one of his family.
The Ingram family, Viscounts Irwin, acquired an influence in Horsham in the early 18th century which in 1737 they converted into control.This article is based on W. Albery’s Parl. Hist. Horsham, chs. VI-X. This was unchallenged for some 50 years, but about 1787 the Whig 11th Duke of Norfolk, who had lately succeeded, decided to build up his influence as lord of the manor.
The 3rd Duke of Dorset owned 29 of the 36 burgages in the borough and returned both Members. Nathaniel Dance, whose wife was a near relation of his, nevertheless paid him £4,000 for a seat plus £50 to entertain the electors in 1796. When the duke died in 1799, by a controversial will he left his property and his electoral interest at East Grinstead to his wife for life, his heir being a minor.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii. 166; Rep. Hist. v. 55; Key (1820), 18; Farington Diary (Yale ed.), ii. 550, 559; Wraxall Mems. ed. Wheatley, iv.
Although there were only two effective contests in this period, Chichester remained an open borough. The 3rd Duke of Richmond had failed to carry both Members in 1784 when White Thomas was championed by the independent party of Blues anxious to prevent a ducal monopoly. Lest they should attempt to oust Richmond altogether, his surviving nominee Thomas Steele, whose roots were local, pretended to dissociate himself from his patron in his preliminary canvass for the election of 1790. The manoeuvre failed and Steele reverted to avowed reliance on Richmond.
By an agreement which had operated since 1774, the two owners of the ‘miserable thatched cottages’ which gave the right to vote at Bramber returned a Member each throughout this period. They were Sir Henry Gough Calthorpe, 2nd Bt., and the 5th Duke of Rutland. Gough Calthorpe on obtaining a peerage in 1796 returned Adams. After his death in 1798, with his sons still minors, Jodrell and his widow’s friend Wilberforce were returned in succession. Rutland was also a minor until 1799 and his mother and uncle the 5th Duke of Beaufort supervised the returns until then.
Arundel remained an open borough, although there was no contest until 1812. Sir George Thomas, returned with the Whig 11th Duke of Norfolk’s cousin in 1790, informed Pitt in 1795:
Steyning was an independent venal borough, always returning government supporters, except in 1715, when on a petition against Robert Leeves, a Tory,
it was proved that thirty-four of the sitting Member’s voters received bribes for their votes from the sitting Member a few days before the election; some had five pounds, and others four guineas a piece, and that several hogs and some corn were distributed to them by the sitting Member’s orders.CJ, xviii. 535.
Shoreham was a thoroughly venal borough, usually returning wealthy merchants, able not only to spend money freely on individual voters but ‘to assist in building merchant vessels, it being the chief manufacture of this borough’.Namier, Structure, 129. The Government had a certain influence from the local customs officers and also from Shoreham men employed at Woolwich and Deptford.
In 1715 the chief interest at Midhurst was in the Viscounts Montagu, the lords of the manor, Roman Catholics, who at this time took no active part in elections. The borough was controlled by the Duke of Somerset, and, successively, by William Woodward and Bulstrode Peachey, who both took the name of Knight on their marriage to Elizabeth Knight, an heiress owning the neighbouring manor of West Dean. The Duke and Bulstrode Peachey each purchased burgages from the 6th Viscount Montagu, undertaking ‘to assist each other’s interest upon all occasions should either be attacked’A. A.
Both Members for Lewes were returned by the Duke of Newcastle, whose interest was based on his property in the town, on his own and his cousins’ seats at Halland, Bishopstone and Stanmer, and on traditional regard for the Pelham family; but it was a troublesome borough requiring constant attention.