Co. Wexford

<p>On 6 May 1798 the heads of the leading interests in this fast expanding port, Lord Ely and Richard Nevill, came to an agreement ‘that a cordial union shall exist between them in the borough of Wexford’ under which each would return a Member and choose alternately the mayor, burgesses and an equal number of freemen, ‘each party to act as trustees for the other’. On 30 Nov. 1800 they agreed to the alternate nomination to the one seat surviving under the terms of the Union. This was confirmed on 16 June 1806 between Nevill and Ely’s heir who had succeeded on 22 Mar.

<p>Before the Union the two leading interests in this close borough, the Tottenham and Leigh families who were intermarried, returned a Member each. From 1801 there was only one Member, so they maintained their agreement by nominating in turn and by practically restricting the electorate to the burgesses of the corporation.<fn>PRO 30/9/13, pt. 2, list of Irish cities and boroughs; <em>Report on Mun. Corp.</em> [<em>I</em>], H.C. 1835, xxviii. app. x, pt. 1, p. 562.</fn> Francis Leigh of Rosegarland returned members of his family.

<p>New Ross, a port suitable for 1,000-ton vessels lying on a navigable stretch of the Barrow, carried on ‘a considerable export trade in agricultural produce’ brought in from its ‘fertile and productive interior’. The municipal corporations commissioners reported that the ‘utmost dissatisfaction and suspicion’ existed towards its self-elected Protestant corporation of two bailiffs, an unlimited number of burgesses (one of whom was annually elected sovereign) and ‘freemen admitted solely by special favour’.

<p>The port of Wexford carried on a ‘considerable export trade in cattle and agricultural produce’, but its harbour, which vessels of over 200 tons could not enter without unloading part of their cargo, was in need of ‘much improvement’. Before 1830 the predominantly Catholic population was excluded from the self-elected corporation of two bailiffs, 22 burgesses (one of whom was annually elected mayor) and an unlimited number of freemen, the majority of whom were honorary and ‘unconnected with the town by property or commercial relations’.