Castle Rising was a complete pocket borough, shared by the families of Walpole and Howard. George, 3rd Earl of Orford, nominated to one seat throughout this period; the other was controlled by Henry, 12th Earl of Suffolk, and after his death in 1779 by his mother, Lady Andover.
The 3rd Duke of Grafton, seated four miles away at Euston, was recorder of this corporation borough and his family had controlled it unopposed throughout the century. Since 1784, however, he had been politically less active and had no member of his immediate family whom he wished to return. In 1790, when one of his nominees died on the eve of dissolution and the other retired, his nomination to both seats was successfully challenged by the Catholic peer, Robert Edward, 9th Baron Petre.
Municipal politics continued to play an important part in Norwich parliamentary electionsB. D. Hayes ‘Pols. in Norf. 1750-1832’ (Camb. Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1957), 55, 234. The freeholder vote, much of it in the ‘country’, constituted about one-fifth of the electorate. and at times candidates for the corporation spent not much less than parliamentary candidates (about £4,000).Ibid. 432; Add. 37885, f.
On the face of it, the electoral arrangements for Lynn were a straightforward compromise of the nominations between two interests. The Walpoles, father and son, represented their long established interest. Sir Martin Browne Ffolkes represented (in the right of his wife) the former interest of Sir John Turner, 3rd Bt.†, who in 1774 had been ousted by Crisp Molyneux.
Yarmouth was a flourishing port, with a steadily rising population and a large and venal electorate, many of them outvoters in London, Norwich and the dockyards of Chatham, Sheerness, Northfleet, Deptford and Blackwall. It was accepted that electors might claim two guineas a vote, but their price rose and in the keen contest of 1818, when 653 outvoters were fetched, douceurs of £20, £80 or even £100 were reported; though the outvote did not sway the outcome.C. J. Palmer, Hist. Gt. Yarmouth (1856), 224-35; B. D. Hayes, ‘Pols. in Norf. 1750-1832’ (Camb. Univ. Ph.D.
The Walpole and Howard families continued to name a Member each throughout this period. Since 1779 their representatives in this electoral pact had been George, 3rd Earl of Orford, by now insane, whose faithful friend Charles Boone continued to sit on his interest, and the dowager Lady Andover.Oldfield, Hist. Boroughs, i. 409; Norf. RO, Howard mss HOW 742, Orford to Lady Andover, 22 Mar.
The representation of Thetford was controlled by the owner of the adjoining estate of Euston. In 1715 Euston belonged to the dowager Duchess of Grafton, whose second husband, Sir Thomas Hanmer, nominated two Tories at that election. From 1722 both Members were Whigs, nominated by her son, the 2nd Duke of Grafton, to whom the estate passed on her death in 1723.
Norwich, which claimed to be the second city in the kingdom, was governed by the mayor, sheriffs, citizens, and commonalty in common council assembled, consisting of twenty-four aldermen, sitting for life, and sixty common councillors, elected annually by the resident freemen. There was also a court of mayoralty, made up of the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, sitting by themselves and combining legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The court of mayoralty or, as it was sometimes called, of aldermen, was Whig and the common council Tory at George I’s accession.
Except in 1715, when one Tory was returned, the representation of Yarmouth was monopolized by the Townshends and Walpoles, each family providing one Member. When in 1732 Sir Robert Walpole notified the mayor of Yarmouth that he proposed to put up his son, Edward, vice his brother, ‘old’ Horace, at the next general election, the corporation unanimously expressed their thanks for this ‘extraordinary favour’.C. J. Palmer, Great Yarmouth, ii.
In 1715 one seat at Castle Rising was controlled by Walpole, whose father had purchased 25 burgages there,H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, ‘Castle Rising and the Walpoles’, in A Supplement to Blomefield’s Norfolk, 33-34. the other by Lady Diana Feilding, the lord of the manor, which she had inherited from her first husband, Thomas Howard, M.P.