Cheshire

When Chester was incorporated in 1506 it was granted the status of a county in itself. Only the city’s castle remained within the jurisdiction of the county palatine of Cheshire, and consequently the borough not only possessed a large governing assembly, consisting of a mayor, 24 aldermen and 40 common councillors, but two sheriffs, elected annually and who served as the borough’s returning officers in parliamentary elections.

The Grosvenor family, seated at Eaton Hall, four miles from Chester, had considerable influence in the corporation; and their record of parliamentary service to the borough was almost unique: between 1715 and 1874 they held one seat without a break, and for 42 out of these 159 years both seats.

But there was always an independent party ready to oppose Grosvenor domination. Walter Thomas, one of its leaders, wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on 18 Aug. 1755:Add. 32858, f. 201.

The Grosvenors of Eaton Hall, about four miles from Chester, held one seat continuously from 1715 to 1874, and both for 36 of the 76 years between 1754 and 1830. They enjoyed great influence with the corporation and the guilds and had a large number of houses in the city, obtained on lease from the crown, which were let for short periods at low rents.

Chester was dominated by a neighbouring Tory family, the Grosvenors, who sat for it without a break from 1715 to 1874, for 42 years holding both seats. Another local Tory family, the Bunburys, sat for it in every Parliament from 1701 to 1747, with a break between 1727 and 1733, when the Grosvenors took both seats.

Chester, on the outbreak of the Civil War, had declared for the King, and much royalist sentiment persisted during the Interregnum. The franchise was technically vested in the freemen, but in the disputed election of 1673 it was stated, on behalf of the successful candidate, that

Chester was governed by 24 aldermen, 40 common councilmen and the freemen. The principal officers were the mayor, two sheriffs (to whom the election writs were sent direct), the recorder and the town clerk, known as the clerk of the pentice.

In 1506 Henry VII granted Chester a charter of incorporation and the status of a county in itself: except for the castle no part of the city remained within the jurisdiction of the chamberlain of the county palatine. The governing body consisted of a mayor, 24 aldermen and 40 common councilmen, who were elected annually. The recorder was ex officio an alderman. One of the sheriffs was chosen by the mayor, aldermen and the retiring pair of sheriffs, the other by the commonalty.

Chester, situated on the River Dee, was the capital of a palatine earldom and an important port for the Irish trade, being only 11 miles inland. A.M. Johnson, ‘Political, Constitutional, Social and Econ. Hist. of Chester 1550-1652’, (Univ. Oxford D.Phil. thesis, 1970), chap. 1; J. McN. Dodgson, Place Names of Cheshire, v. (I:i), 2-7. It received its first charter in 1354, and in 1506 was granted county status. However, Chester Castle and its surrounds (Gloverstone) remained under the authority of the chamberlain of the county palatine.

The fortified cathedral city of Chester, separated from North Wales by the River Dee, was a county corporate of eleven parishes within the county palatine of Cheshire, of which it was the capital. Attempts to staunch the loss of trade to Liverpool in the eighteenth century by making a navigable ‘cut’ in the silted and treacherous Dee estuary had largely failed, but Chester remained the major legal and commercial centre for Cheshire and North Wales and a producer of ‘superior’ gloves, tobacco, tobacco pipes and snuff. Parl. Gazetteer of England and Wales (1844), i.