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.
There were no significant outside interests at Ipswich, the state of parties within the corporation proving generally the determining influence in parliamentary elections. The town itself, though well situated as a port, had the appearance of being ‘a little disregarded’: commerce was ‘entirely neglected’ and there was no industry to speak of.
The powerful interest of the Cornwallises of Brome, which had lain dormant since the defeat of their candidates in the 1681 election, revived in 1690, when the Whig Thomas Davenant, a nominee of the 3rd Lord Cornwallis, was returned, albeit with a Tory colleague, Henry Poley. At the next election, Cornwallis was able to secure both seats, his eldest son, Hon. Charles, replacing Poley. This domination was to be maintained throughout the period.
At the beginning of this period Dunwich was already ‘manifestly decayed by the invasion of the waters’ and ‘in danger of being swallowed up’: ‘as the Church of England is semimortua and semisepulta, so is this corporation half-eaten up by the sea’. In 1702 St. Peter’s parish church had to be demolished; not long afterwards a similar fate befell the town hall. Yet Defoe noted that the town, ‘however, ruined, retains some share of trade’, and there remained enough inhabitants to make a residence qualification for the parliamentary franchise a serious proposition.
A notable beneficiary of the late 17th-century ‘urban renaissance’, Bury St. Edmunds was predominantly a ‘leisure town’, ‘the Montpellier of Suffolk’ in Defoe’s memorable phrase, whose most visible industry was the recreation of polite society. Its resident ‘pseudo-gentry’ and upwardly mobile professionals, like the apothecary Thomas Macro, owner of the finest house in the town, formed a comfortable and pretentious oligarchy, who kept the parliamentary franchise firmly within their grasp.
Aldeburgh was virtually a pocket borough of Sir Henry Johnson, the Tory shipbuilder of Blackwall. He owned the manor of Aldeburgh with other estates nearby and was able to return himself and his younger brother William (who himself enjoyed an estate at nearby Sternfield) at every election in this period. The most serious challenge came in 1690, from Sir Edward Turnor*, another Tory, who had put up the previous year but had then withdrawn before the poll.
The ‘slow proceedings’ of the Suffolk Tories were looked upon as one of the major causes of their defeat in 1690. After one of the sitting Members, Sir John Rous, 2nd Bt., had declined to stand, the way had been left clear for the two Whig candidates, Sir Samuel Barnardiston, 1st Bt., and Sir Gervase Elwes, 1st Bt. It was only in the last fortnight that their Tory opponents ‘appeared’: first Sir John Playters, 4th Bt., and then Sir Robert Davers, 2nd Bt., ‘set up by the Duke of Grafton and the gentlemen . . . at Bury’.
Uniquely, the borough of Tamworth straddled two counties: the larger part, including the castle, lay in Warwickshire; the smaller, including the church, in Staffordshire. As a consequence, a writ from each sheriff was necessary for an election to be held. The dominant interest belonged to Viscount Weymouth (Thomas Thynne†) who held the manors of Drayton and Tamworth and had a local rent-roll worth over £3,000 p.a.
Stafford, the county town, had seen considerable electoral manoeuvrings during the Restoration period but no actual polling of rival candidates. In 1690, however, there was a challenge to the more Whiggish of the outgoing Members, Philip Foley, from a Tory, Jonathan Cope I, which resulted in a poll. All three candidates were local gentlemen, but John Chetwynd, who topped the poll, had the support of the corporation. The real contest was for the other seat and here the role of the mayor, as the returning officer, proved vital.
Newcastle-under-Lyme was a small market town governed by a corporation consisting of a mayor and 24 capital burgesses which was able to exercise considerable political influence through its regulatory powers over trade and its control over the franchise. However, these powers were insufficient to wrest the parliamentary representation of the borough away from the neighbouring gentry, particularly those families with property in the town such as the Leveson Gowers of Trentham.
