Middlesex

<p>The city and liberty of Westminster presented a significant contrast: a prestigious constituency with a plebeian, often violent, electorate. Encompassing the seat of both monarch and Parliament, the borough was frequently contested by ministers, who recognized its potential impact on elections throughout the country, and took advantage of the Court’s influence over local tradesmen and victuallers. The propinquity of the palaces of Whitehall and St.

<p>Westminster was the largest urban constituency in the kingdom, and invariably returned men of the highest social standing: of its fourteen representatives between 1754 and 1790, nine were sons of peers, one was an Irish peer, and four were baronets. Indeed, in 1762 Newcastle was uncertain whether Edwin Sandys, whose father had been ennobled only in 1743, was ‘of dignity enough’ to represent Westminster.<fn>Add. 32936, f.

<p>The Westminster electorate numbered about 16,000 in theory, but about 12,000 in practice. A significant proportion were members of the leisured classes and included many of the political and social elite. Below them in the social scale ranked a wide assortment of professional men, a numerically dominant mass of tradesmen, shopkeepers, craftsmen and skilled artisans and a relatively small number of poor artisans, menials and labourers. The violent potential of the unenfranchised mob made it a factor to be reckoned with.

<p>Westminster, wrote the 2nd Lord Egmont, who sat for it as Lord Perceval,</p><blockquote><p>consists of the greatest number of votes in the whole kingdom, excepting only the county of York; for it contains above 16,000 houses, which are of such a rent as to be charged to the church and poor, and consequently to entitle the possessors to vote.

<p>The city of Westminster, as the administrative capital of the kingdom, the principal residence of the sovereign, and the usual venue of Parliament, enjoyed a peculiar status. The dean of Westminster appointed a high steward, who for most of the period was the loyal Duke of Ormonde, and together they nominated the corporation, consisting of 12 ‘burgesses’ and 12 assistants, and the high bailiff, who acted as returning officer. The high steward also appointed a deputy for judicial purposes.

<p>The city of Westminster, composed of the parishes of St. Margaret and St. Martin-in-the-Fields, was beginning to lose its separate identity in the Elizabethan period: a continuous line of buildings along the Strand connected it with London. Many of its inhabitants were employed in the royal services or in various government offices. Municipal development had been limited, the dean and chapter of the collegiate church of St. Peter having inherited from the abbots the civil as well as ecclesiastical government of the city and its liberties.

<p>Westminster was given the status of a city by the letters patent of December 1540 which reconstituted the former abbey as a cathedral, but neither then nor later was it incorporated. Between 1540 and 1550 the bishop exercised the powers, including the right to appoint a steward (otherwise under steward) of Westminster, which earlier had been vested in the abbey, and after the suppression of the bishopric these were transferred to the dean and chapter of the collegiate church set up by Edward VI.