Pembrokeshire

The population of Pembrokeshire in 1670 has been estimated at around 32,000, making it the fifth largest of the Welsh counties by that measure. By size, however, it was small, its county leaders asserting in 1626 that it was at no point more than 18 miles wide. L. Owen, ‘The Population of Wales in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’, Trans. Hon. Soc. Cymmrodorion, 1959, 113; HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Pembrokeshire’. Culturally, it was marked by a linguistic divide established in the eleventh century when the region was subject to Anglo-Norman colonization.

One of the most prosperous towns in south Wales, Haverfordwest, a county borough, had by statute in 1543 acquired the privilege of returning a single Member to Parliament. A charter in 1610 clarified the governance of the borough, which lay in a common council of 24 which elected the mayor, two bailiffs and the sheriff, the returning officer, from out of its number. The common council has been described as ‘a self-perpetuating oligarchy of the wealthier and most prominent burgesses’. Cal. Recs.

In the 1530s, John Leland visited Pembroke when it could glory in its fame as the birthplace of Henry VII, and he was evidently impressed by the impregnable castle and the stout town walls. Even then, however, the eastern suburb of the town was in ruins, hinting that prosperity was not easily sustained in south-west Wales. A pattern of decay and depopulation persisted well into the seventeenth century. The Itinerary in Wales of John Leland ed. L.

The Owens of Orielton had controlled the Pembroke Boroughs constituency almost without interruption since 1626, their influence centring upon the county borough, which provided both the venue for the poll and the returning officer. Until Queen Anne’s reign they were also the dominant power in Tenby, like Pembroke itself an ‘agreeable town’. The second and smaller of the out-boroughs, Wiston, was the manorial preserve of an impoverished branch of the Wogan family, which as yet had played only an insignificant part in elections.

Haverfordwest surprised Defoe: it was ‘a better town than we expected to find, in this remote angle of Britain . . . strong, well built, clean and populous’. The franchise had been settled by a decision of the Commons in 1663 in ‘the burgesses inhabitants’, that is to say the resident freemen, and ‘the inhabitants which paid scot and lot’ (a definition construed in 1715 to include freeholders as well), but it seems clear that the corporation still constituted the most important element in the parliamentary constituency.

Two interests were dominant in Haverfordwest: those of the Edwardes family of Johnston and of the Philipps family of Picton Castle. But it was generally understood between them that William Edwardes should be allowed to represent the borough, in return for supporting the Philipps family in the county. This arrangement broke down in 1784 when Lord Milford, defeated in Pembrokeshire, canvassed Haverfordwest; and forced Lord Kensington (as Edwardes had become) to decline. When Milford vacated his seat in 1786 in order to stand for the county, Kensington came in again for Haverfordwest.

Pembroke was under the influence of the Owen family of Orielton but their control of the constituency was not complete, for Wiston was ruled by the Wogan family. At the general election of 1761, when Sir William Owen and Sir John Philipps were contesting the county, Charles Townshend was instigated by Philipps and Wogan to make a bid for the boroughs by a large-scale creation of freemen in Wiston. Owen thereupon ceded the county seat to Philipps; Wogan called off Townshend; and the Owens were again secure in Pembroke Boroughs.

The borough of Pembroke had been the focus of the influence of the Owens of Orielton since the mid 17th century. It was on their doorstep and the corporation enfranchised voters in their interest only: the admission books were not even accessible to their opponents in the litigation that followed the contest of 1812. The Owens had not succeeded in their earlier attempts to disfranchise Wiston, the lesser contributory borough which was influenced by their enemy Lord Cawdor, lord of the manor by purchase from 1794, who at once created 600 burgesses. The Owens now did the same at Pembroke.