In 1715 Lord Herbert of Chirbury, whose estate of Ribbesford was three quarters of a mile from Bewdley, wrested control of the borough from another neighbouring family, the Winningtons. He retained control, returning government supporters, till 1734, when he was ousted by William Bowles, in circumstances described in a paper drawn up for Walpole after the election:‘The Present State of the Corporation of Bewdley’, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss.
Under George I and George II the chief interests in Worcestershire were those of the 5th and 6th Earls of Coventry, lord lieutenants of the county, Whigs, and of the 1st and 2nd Lords Foley of Witley, Tories. After a contest in 1715, when one of the former Tory Members, Sir John Pakington, was returned, but the other, Samuel Pytts, was defeated by a Whig, the next two elections were compromised, each party taking one seat.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the chief interest at Wootton Bassett was in the St. Johns, seated at Lydiard Tregoze, three miles from the borough. The St. John interest began to decline about 1708, when Bolingbroke, then still Henry St. John, who had sat for the borough since 1701, wrote to Harley:
My father makes a scandalous figure, neglected by all the gentlemen, and sure of miscarrying where his family always were reverenced.HMC Bath, i. 190.
Though predestined to fall under the influence of the Herberts, earls of Pembroke, the lords of the borough, who owned the surrounding property, Wilton was still independent in 1715, when the corporation re-elected the former Members, John London, a Blackwell Hall cloth factor, and Thomas Pitt, later Lord Londonderry, whose father, Governor Pitt, owned the neighbouring estate of Stratford sub Castle.
The Berties, earls of Abingdon, Tories, were lords of the manor of Westbury, where they owned a majority of the burgages. One or both seats were taken by members of the Bertie family at every election from the Revolution to the accession of the House of Hanover. From 1715 to 1754 they were less successful, partly because, as Tories, their candidates were liable to be unseated by the Whig House of Commons on petition, partly because their practice had been to grant long leases, which reduced their hold on their tenants.
The Salisbury corporation, an independent body, always returned Members with strong local connexions. There was no bribery but gifts for the good of the city were accepted. From 1721 Anthony Duncombe, later Lord Feversham, Whig, and from 1741 Sir Edward Bouverie, Tory, established interests.
Old Sarum was an ancient but entirely depopulated borough, the site of which was bought in 1692 by Governor Thomas Pitt, who ‘ploughed and sowed’ the castle area. The few burgages lay in the meadows to the south of the castle alongside the Roman road running to the Avon ford. Elections were held at the parliamentary tree, which stood till 1905 in the ‘electing acre’ nearly half-way to the river on the north-west side of the road.VCH Wilts, vi. 66-67, citing electoral map of Old Sarum, c.
In the early eighteenth century the principal interests at Marlborough were in Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset, Whig, and the Bruce family of Tottenham Park and Savernake, Tories. The Bruces had succeeded to the ancestral Wiltshire estates of the Seymours by marriage in 1676; the Duke owned Marlborough Castle. The franchise was in the corporation, a close body, recruited by co-option.
The Members for Malmesbury were returned on the recommendation of the high steward, elected annually by the corporation. In 1715 this office was held by Lord Wharton, who brought in his former secretary, Joseph Addison, with another Whig, Sir John Rushout. At the general election of 1722 it was held by his son, the Duke of Wharton, whose candidates, Rushout and Lord Hillsborough, were unseated on petition in favour of Giles Earle and John Fermor, both followers of the Duke of Argyll, high steward from 1722 to 1741.
At George I’s accession the chief interest at Ludgershall was that of the Webbs of Biddesden, in the parish of Ludgershall. In 1715 the candidates were General John Richmond Webb, his brother, Thomas, and another Tory, John Ivory Talbot. General Webb was returned with Talbot, against whom Thomas petitioned on the ground that he had a majority of legal votes but that the bailiff had been prevailed upon to return Talbot. The petition was withdrawn.CJ, xviii. 37, 425-6. In 1722, when all three candidates were Webbs, the general and his son, Borlase, defeated Thomas.
