Worcestershire

Droitwich was synonymous with salt. This useful commodity had been boiled from the lime located in the manor since the 8th century. King John had incorporated the burgesses in 1215 in return for an annual fee farm rent of £100. The two bailiffs and the burgesses (freemen) were empowered to control the organization of the industry. To qualify as a burgess one had to own at least a quarter share in a ‘fat’ (vat). However, there were only three routes open to obtain a burgess-ship: inheritance, adoption or unanimous election by the existing freemen.

The representative history of Bewdley in these years revolved around the rivalry of the Herbert and Winnington families. The Herberts owned property at Ribbesford and Dowles, each within a mile of the borough, and as a consequence Henry Herbert (like his father Sir Henry Herbert†) had sat for the town during the Restoration period and again in the Convention of 1689. They had not been beyond challenge, however, as Thomas Foley†, the great ironmaster, and his third son, Philip Foley*, had both represented Bewdley before 1689.

The main power in Worcester politics was the corporation, working in close association with the bishop, the cathedral chapter, and the lord lieutenant of Worcestershire. To maintain its ascendancy the corporation made full use of its right to create nonresident freemen, who formed a large proportion of the voters and considerably increased the cost of elections. There was also an anti-corporation or independent party, supported by the Dissenters, and until political issues began to appear in the early seventies the two sides divided on a Church and Dissent basis.

In the first half of the 18th century the representation of Droitwich was usually divided between the Foleys and the Winningtons; from 1750 to 1777 the Foleys controlled both seats; and from 1777 again divided the borough with the Winningtons.

‘A profusion of trouble and expense has for more than half a century past ... marked a seat in Parliament for the borough of Evesham’, wrote Mark Beaufoy to Sir John Rushout on 1 Sept. 1767.G. Beaufoy, Leaves from a Beech Tree, 112. The strongest interest was that of the Rushouts of Northwick Park, who held one seat without a break from 1722 to 1796. A long way behind came that of the Rudge family, who first sat for the borough in 1680.

The corporation consisted of the bailiff (the returning officer), the recorder, and twelve freemen. Since it had the power to create any number of honorary freemen, control of the corporation was essential for electoral purposes. In the second half of the eighteenth century the borough was contested between the Lyttelton and Winnington families.

The traditional rivalry between the corporation and independent parties, the latter supported largely by the dissenters, many of whom were Quakers, could not be checked by the reluctance of candidates to stir up contests in a constituency where the substantial non-resident vote, much of it in Birmingham and London, added to the expense. Only two elections in this period went uncontested; and in 1790 the three candidates were all favourable to Pitt’s government.

Although Evesham was an open borough, the corporation had since 1661 always been much attached to the family of the Rushouts of Northwick in this neighbourhood, whose interest has been considered as the prevailing one, and sufficient to procure a seat in Parliament for one of that family. The other seat is open.This, apart from subjecting the Rushouts to considerable anxiety, gave adequate scope to ‘a combination of attorneys’ to manoeuvre the return of the second Member.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii, 263; Rep. Hist. v. 250.

Droitwich was a close borough which never gave any trouble to its patrons. There had been no contest since 1747 when the Foleys, who had long shared the nominations with the Winningtons, contrived to take both seats. Their intermarriage in 1776 led to another era of sharing. Thomas Foley, 2nd Baron Foley (d.1793) returned his brother Andrew and brother-in-law Winnington. On the latter’s death in 1805, Andrew Foley was joined by his son until 1807, when Winnington’s heir came in.

Bewdley was in the pocket of the Lyttelton family, high stewards of the borough, but they were not personally represented from 1796 when Andrews, a wealthy friend of the family, was returned. He made a gift of £3,000 towards building Bewdley bridge in 1801, and further gifts to the corporation of £1,000 in 1807 and £2,000 in 1808.W. R. Williams, Worcs.