Commons 1690-1715

Browne Willis* described Hedon as no longer ‘a fair haven town’, but one standing about a mile within a creek overgrown ‘with flags and reeds and the haven is very sadly decayed’. Defoe’s prediction that its former prosperity as a port might be revived, so that it would one day rival the neighbouring town of Kingston-upon-Hull, was never realized, and it owed its prosperity to elections rather than to trade. Members of Parliament had to purchase their freedom before being chosen – at a price set by the corporation.

Writing of Boroughbridge, Defoe noted that ‘there is something very singular at this town, and which is not to be found in any other part of England or Scotland, namely, two borough towns in one parish, and each sending two members to Parliament’. The other borough was Aldborough, the original parish town. Browne Willis* described Boroughbridge as ‘a poor-built town of about 90 houses, of which 68 are borough houses and have votes for Members’.

Beverley, a ‘large market town’, was an attractive place of residence for the East Riding gentry, many of whom kept a town house there, ‘upon account of its pleasant situation for game, nearness to York, and goodness of the town’. However, the local cloth-making industry was in decline, and the corporation, consisting of a mayor, recorder, 12 aldermen or ‘governors’, and 13 capital burgesses, relied on the generosity of its Members of Parliament to provide for their needs. The chief interests were traditionally those of the Wartons of Beverley and the Hothams of Scorborough.

In the 1730s Browne Willis described Aldborough as ‘a scattered village’ of about 100 houses, of which 85 were ‘borough houses’, though it is probable that there were only 50 such houses in the early 1690s. There was no town hall and elections took place in the church. All the borough houses appear to have been owned by the lord of the manor, Sir Michael Wentworth of Woolley, at whose court leet the bailiff, who acted as returning officer, was chosen.

The largest English county, Yorkshire demonstrated over five contested elections that its political awareness was as keen in the late 17th and early 18th centuries as in the 1730s, 1770s and 1780s. The county grandees tended to be Whigs, with the exception of the Marquess of Carmarthen (Sir Thomas Osborne†), who had led the northern rising at the Revolution and in 1690 was chief minister to William III and lord lieutenant of all three ridings. However, many of the gentry appeared to favour Toryism. W. A. Speck, Tory and Whig, 66.

‘The people mostly subsist by woollen manufacture. The best broadcloth in England is made here.’ So wrote Rev. Thomas Cox in 1700. Worcester’s prosperity was based on this type of textile production, much of it intended for London and the export market. However, structural shifts in the economy, which led to the disappearance of the industry by 1750, were already causing severe dislocation and hardship. The problems besetting the trade no doubt explain the eagerness of the clothiers’ company to petition Parliament in the hope of influencing legislation in ways beneficial to the industry.

After a brief hiatus under the charter of 1684 when the borough’s parliamentary representatives were elected by the corporation, Evesham returned to its freeman franchise for the elections to the Convention of 1689. The lack of an indigenous elite capable of engrossing the representation to itself ensured that the borough fell prey to outsiders, helped no doubt by the custom whereby members of the eight companies could all be admitted to the freedom of the borough, and the power of the corporation to create freemen (including non-residents).

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 greater gentry monopolized the representation of Worcestershire between 1690 and 1715, albeit in a series of bitterly contested elections. The same families had dominated the county in the Restoration period and were to retain their influence into the Hanoverian period, which saw most of them ennobled. The role of the largely absentee peerage seems to have been to exert influence in favour of one of these gentry families, rather than to impose one of their own relations, kinsmen or nominees.