Hertfordshire

<p>Hertford was well established before the Norman Conquest, and returned Members to at least 16 medieval Parliaments. However, the town fell into severe decline as a result of the Black Death, and the franchise was allowed to lapse after 1376. During the early sixteenth century the local economy began to recover, mainly because its markets were increasingly frequented by traders from London buying grain, malt, and other staples.<fn>E. de Villiers, ‘Parlty. Bors. Restored by the Commons 1621-41’, <em>EHR</em>, lxvii. 180; <em>VCH Herts</em>. iii.

<p>Political division in St. Albans stemmed chiefly from two events at the end of Charles ii’s reign: first, the acquisition in 1684 by John Churchill†, later Duke of Marlborough, of the Sandridge estate, which included the manor of Holywell on the town’s outskirts; and second, the surrender the same year of the borough’s charter, induced by Churchill. Both developments threatened the interest of Sir Samuel Grimston, 3rd Bt., who owned the nearby Gorhambury estate and had been elected by the town in 1679 and 1681.

<p>Hertford was one of the most factious boroughs in England, though such an impression may partly be due to the wealth of surviving sources, which allow a fuller exploration of its political, personal and religious disputes than is possible for many other corporations. The town contained ‘above 300 hundred inhabitants’, a high proportion of whom were Dissenters.

<p>Hertford was an independent borough, generally reckoned one of the most uncorrupt in the kingdom. ‘The Dissenting interest is very considerable there’, wrote Paul Feilde in 1769,<fn>Add. 35639, f. 124.</fn> particularly the Quakers. The representatives were nearly all drawn from local gentry; and the leading families concerned in the borough were the Harrisons of Balls Park, the Cowpers of Panshanger, the Calverts, and the Dimsdale and Brassey families. But almost any substantial Hertfordshire country gentleman would have had a chance.

<p>The chief interest in the borough was in the Spencer family, who had inherited an estate near and in St. Albans from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, and in the Grimston family of Gorhambury, two miles from the borough. Lord Salisbury, at Hatfield only four miles from St. Albans, had some influence; and so had James West, who during the 27 years he represented the borough built up an interest of his own.

<p>The leading interests were those of Lords Spencer and Grimston, who had returned a Member each since 1768. Earl Spencer’s was the stronger, based on his hold over the corporation and sustained by loans, the support of the local dissenters and superiority among the outvoters;<fn>H. F. C. Lansberry, ‘Politics and Govt. in St. Albans 1685-1835’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1964), summarized in <em>I.H.R. Bull</em>, xli.

<p>Hertford was invariably represented by the local gentry, and as the corporation could not make more than three honorary freemen the competition was limited. In 1790 <a href="/landingpage/59481" title="William Baker" class="involume">William Baker</a> of Bayfordbury tried to regain the seat which he had won in 1780 and lost to John Calvert of Albury in 1784. The other candidate, Nathaniel Dimsdale, was the heir of the retiring Member and, like Calvert, well disposed to Pitt’s government, which Baker opposed.

<p>At the accession of George I the chief interests in St. Albans were those of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, derived from the estate of Sandridge, close to the borough, of the Grimstons of Gorhambury, two miles away, and of the corporation from the mayor’s power of creating honorary freemen. The Lomax and the Gape families, whose estates lay near the town, also had some electoral influence. The Grimstons and the Lomaxes were government Whigs; the Duchess soon became bitterly opposed to Walpole; the Gapes were Tories; the corporation sided alternately with the two major interests.