In 1715 Walter and William Chetwynd, two Whigs, whose family seat, Ingestre Hall, was less than five miles from Stafford, were returned unopposed. In 1716 the corporation petitioned against the septennial bill as ‘overturning our present constitution and an infringement of our liberties’.CJ, xviii.
At George I’s accession the chief interest at Newcastle-under-Lyme was in Lord Gower, the head of the Staffordshire Tories, who owned a large part of the town, where one seat was usually held by a member of his family. Except in 1715, when two Whigs were returned on petition, and in 1722 and 1734, when one of the seats was held by Whigs, all the Members were Tories till 1744 when Lord Gower went over to the Administration.
There was no predominant influence at Lichfield. Contests were frequent and sometimes turbulent owing to a strong and aggressive Jacobite element in the town. In 1715 Chetwynd, a Whig, and Hill, a moderate Tory, defeated two high Tories.
The representation of Staffordshire was monopolized by four local families, the Leveson Gowers, Wards, Bagots, and Pagets, all Tories at George I’s accession except the Pagets, who had gone over to the Whigs. There were no contests till 1747, when Tory anger against the Leveson Gowers for going over to the Administration led to the first contested election for a hundred years, and the last before the reform bill. Lord Gower had expected that Bagot would ‘compromise the count’ for himself and William Leveson Gower,Ld.
Elections at Wells were controlled by the corporation, a Tory body, who could manipulate the franchise by creating honorary freemen and through the power of the mayor as returning officer to decide who was entitled to vote. At every election but that of 1741, which was compromised, there was a contest on party lines, resulting in the return of the opposition candidates, followed by a petition from the unsuccessful government candidates, alleging partiality and malpractices on the part of the returning officer.
In 1715 two Tories were re-elected against two Whigs after a violent contest.J. Toulmin, Taunton, 315. Petitions alleging partiality by the mayor as returning officer in accepting unqualified Tory votes were heard on eleven days at the bar of the House, who awarded the seats to the Whig candidates, rejecting a motion, presumably in the interests of the sitting Members, that
At the beginning of the eighteenth century both Minehead seats were controlled by the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, Tories, through their right as lords of the manor to appoint the constables, who acted as returning officers. Their monopoly of the representation was resented by a section of the inhabitants, who took advantage of the minority of Alexander Luttrell to raise an opposition to the castle interest.
Milborne Port elections were controlled by the owners of nine capital burgages, whose holders, known as capital bailiffs, constituted the government of the borough. Every year in rotation two of these capital bailiffs chose two deputies to execute certain functions, including those of returning officers, but there was some doubt as to whether the returning officer should be a capital or a deputy bailiff.
The chief interest in the venalFrancis Fane to Newcastle, 29 Sept. 1756, Add. 32867, f. 474. borough of Ilchester was that of the Lockyers, a local family of wealthy business men, with estates in and about the borough, which from 1727 they managed in the government interest. Three of the Members returned during this period— Hopkins, Brown, and Thomas Lockyer— were noted misers.
In 1715 one of the Bridgwater seats was held by George Dodington, whose family estate was near the borough, where he had the government interest, derived from the customs and excise officers at the port. Both interests were inherited by his nephew, Bubb Dodington, who shared the representation with local Tory country gentlemen till 1741.
