In addition to the usual party divisions in Sussex, there was considerable rivalry between its eastern and its western sides which was exacerbated by the method of holding elections in the county. Each election was confined to the town where the county court was sitting, and by law the county court met alternately in Lewes and Chichester.
Although dwarfed by the neighbouring city of London, Southwark retained control of its choice of Members, an independence maintained despite the competing jurisdictions of the metropolis and the county of Surrey. A charter of 1550 had established Southwark as the City ward of Bridge Without, but the borough had never been fully assimilated by the government of the London corporation.
The largest of the three pocket boroughs in south-east Surrey, Reigate became as much of a battleground for territorial rivalries as nearby Bletchingley and Gatton. The lordship of Reigate manor was the most important interest, providing its owner with an influence over the annual election of the bailiff, the borough’s returning officer. As several petitions indicated, the choice of bailiff proved a significant electoral advantage, particularly as the extent of the franchise remained in doubt.
Haslemere’s relatively isolated position in the south-west corner of Surrey did not spare it the close attention of the county’s politicians. Although the borough was no more than ‘a small town with a very indifferent market’, the limited size of its electorate encouraged much contention between rival gentry factions.
This ‘well-known and considerable market-town’ was a notable electoral prize on account of its status as the county town and as the venue for the county election. In the absence of a resident interest of sufficient strength to block external interference, Guildford’s two seats remained the preserve of the neighbouring gentry of west Surrey. Pre-eminent were the Onslows of Clandon Park, who had first represented the borough at the Restoration and, on the initiative of Sir Richard Onslow†, had cultivated the interest of the corporation since that time.
Already regarded as a rotten borough, Gatton was shamelessly manipulated by local proprietorial interests. Comprising little more than ten houses and a small church, it was condemned by Defoe as a ‘miserable’ place. Control of one of the seats lay with the lord of the manor, whose influence over the nomination of the parish constable, the returning officer, proved a decisive electoral advantage. The other seat was usually the preserve of the owner of the mansion of Upper Gatton, which lay to the north of the hamlet.
Although dismissed by Browne Willis* as ‘one street . . . lying on a descent of ordinary houses’, Bletchingley could rely on its two parliamentary seats to attract the attention of local landowners, county magnates and City merchants. However, its frequent election contests belied the fact that both seats remained comfortably in Whig hands, and until 1710 electoral rivalry was principally of a territorial, rather than of a party, nature.
Although dominated by the Onslow interest, a perennial feature of Surrey politics since 1628, the unpredictability of the county electorate was testified by a long series of contested elections and several notable upsets at the polls. Even the apparent master of the shire, Sir Richard Onslow, 3rd Bt., displayed a profound respect for the wishes of his constituents, and his control of the county’s second seat was never certain.
The fact that ‘the Sudburians’ were regarded as ‘a beggarly and mercenary sort of people’ often attracted wealthy outsiders to put up, but in 1690 the borough’s representatives were both local Whig country gentlemen, Philip Gurdon of Assington and John Robinson, son-in-law of one of the knights of the shire, Sir Gervase Elwes, 1st Bt., who had sat for Sudbury in Charles II’s reign and still enjoyed a strong interest there.
The bitter party strife that overtook Orford in this period, and transformed its electorate from a corporate oligarchy into a much larger body of freemen, arose from interference by country gentlemen, to whom such ‘decayed’ boroughs were a tempting prey.
