Commons 1715-1754

Northampton politics were dominated by two neighbouring families, the Montagus of Horton, earls of Halifax, and the Comptons of Castle Ashby, earls of Northampton. The corporation were an important factor from the power of the mayor and bailiffs as returning officers. In 1715 their patron was the Earl of Halifax, whose family held one seat in every Parliament from 1705 to 1734. The other seat was held by a Tory, William Wykes. In 1722 Wykes was ousted by William Wilmer, a Whig sponsored by Halifax, who rejected a Tory suggestion that he should ‘let his brother and Mr.

Brackley, a town of about 250 houses, was controlled by the dukes of Bridgwater, the lords of the manor, which their family acquired by marriage in 1597. The franchise was vested in the corporation, consisting of the mayor, 6 aldermen and 26 capital burgesses. The mayor, who was the returning officer, was nominated by the lord’s steward out of the aldermen. Vacancies among the aldermen were filled by the corporation out of two capital burgesses nominated respectively by the steward and the mayor.Bridges, Northants. i.

From 1701 to 1730 the Northamptonshire seats were held by two Tory country gentlemen, Sir Justinian Isham of Lamport and Thomas Cartwright of Aynhoe, after 1705 without opposition. The first contest occurred on Isham’s death in 1730, when a Whig candidate, William Hanbury, appealed to the freeholders ‘to assert their ancient and just rights of election’, of which it was suggested, they had been deprived for over 20 years by an unholy compact between the great local landowners ‘to preserve the peace of the county’.

The representation of Thetford was controlled by the owner of the adjoining estate of Euston. In 1715 Euston belonged to the dowager Duchess of Grafton, whose second husband, Sir Thomas Hanmer, nominated two Tories at that election. From 1722 both Members were Whigs, nominated by her son, the 2nd Duke of Grafton, to whom the estate passed on her death in 1723.

Norwich, which claimed to be the second city in the kingdom, was governed by the mayor, sheriffs, citizens, and commonalty in common council assembled, consisting of twenty-four aldermen, sitting for life, and sixty common councillors, elected annually by the resident freemen. There was also a court of mayoralty, made up of the mayor, sheriffs, and aldermen, sitting by themselves and combining legislative, executive, and judicial functions. The court of mayoralty or, as it was sometimes called, of aldermen, was Whig and the common council Tory at George I’s accession.

Except in 1715, when one Tory was returned, the representation of Yarmouth was monopolized by the Townshends and Walpoles, each family providing one Member. When in 1732 Sir Robert Walpole notified the mayor of Yarmouth that he proposed to put up his son, Edward, vice his brother, ‘old’ Horace, at the next general election, the corporation unanimously expressed their thanks for this ‘extraordinary favour’.C. J. Palmer, Great Yarmouth, ii.

In 1715 one seat at Castle Rising was controlled by Walpole, whose father had purchased 25 burgages there,H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence, ‘Castle Rising and the Walpoles’, in A Supplement to Blomefield’s Norfolk, 33-34. the other by Lady Diana Feilding, the lord of the manor, which she had inherited from her first husband, Thomas Howard, M.P.

At George I’s accession the chief Norfolk families on the Whig side were the Townshends and Walpoles, on the Tory, the Wodehouses and Astleys. The sitting Members, Sir Jacob Astley and Sir Edmund Bacon, were Tories, but before the general election of 1715 Walpole won over Astley, who joined with a Whig, Thomas de Grey, to defeat two Tories.

Monmouth was under the sway of the dukes of Beaufort, who had a strong interest in all its three constituent boroughs. In Monmouth the Duke controlled the council of 15 life-members; in Usk he was lord of the manor, appointing the burgesses through the recorder; in Newport, where he was lord of the borough, his steward nominated the mayor from two candidates chosen by the aldermen.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century control of the county was in the Whig Morgans of Tredegar and in the Tory dukes of Beaufort, by virtue of their Raglan estate. During Anne’s reign John Morgan of Tredegar twice attempted to carry both seats but although he himself always headed the poll, he failed to secure the second one.NLW, Tredegar mss 255. In the favourable circumstances of 1715, however, Morgan and a kinsman, Thomas Lewis, were returned without opposition.