The principal interests at Launceston in 1715 were in two Tories; George Granville, 1st Lord Lansdowne, the recorder of the borough, with which he had an hereditary connexion; and Sir Nicholas Morice, whose interest was based on his estate at Werrington.
No determination about the right of election at Helston existed, but it was assumed to be in the corporation, a close body, consisting of the mayor, four aldermen, and an unlimited number of freemen. The patrons were the Godolphin family, whose seat was five miles away and who had property in the town. From 1715 to 1741 inclusive, Francis, 2nd Earl of Godolphin, a member of Walpole’s Administration and recorder of Helston, returned both Members, most of them placemen nominated by the Government.
At Grampound the mayor was chosen by the freemen from two candidates presented to them by the outgoing mayor and magistrates from among themselves. New freemen, whose only qualification was the payment of scot and lot, could be created by a jury consisting of the mayor, two aldermanic colleagues of his own choice (termed ‘eligers’ or ‘elizors’), and 11 freemen nominated by these three. Since the mayor was also the returning officer, he was an important figure both in the determination of the parliamentary voters and in the actual election of Members.
In 1715 the chief Fowey families were the Rashleighs, Tories, and the Treffrys, Whigs, each of whom owned a great deal of property in the town. Neither of these families, however, represented it during the reign of George I, when one seat was filled by another local family, the Vincents, Tories turned Whig, and the other by Tories, without a contest. The Vincent interest died with Nicholas Vincent in 1726, while that of the Treffrys went into abeyance ten years later on the death of William Treffry, the local collector of customs.
The controlling interest at the Looes was that of Sir John Trelawny, 4th Bt., of Trelawne, who placed the seats not occupied by himself or his brother Edward at the disposal of the Administration, in return for an allowance of £500 p.a.
The chief interests at Callington in 1715 were in two Tories: Samuel Rolle, who as lord of the manor appointed the returning officer, and Sir John Coryton, who had much property in the borough and resided in the neighbouring parish. On the death of Rolle in 1719, Thomas Copleston, a Whig who was a trustee of the Rolle estate, was returned against a Tory.
The chief interests at Bossiney in 1715 were those of Samuel Travers, who held a duchy lease of Tintagel castle,Maclean, Trigg Minor, iii. 203. and of Robert Corker, receiver general of the duchy in 1720, who owned property in and around the borough. Until 1741 it returned government supporters and servants of the Prince of Wales. Thomas Pitt, the Prince of Wales’s manager for the Cornish boroughs, wrote c. Oct. 1740:
In 1715 Charles Bodville Robartes, 2nd Earl of Radnor, one of the heads of the Cornish Whigs, whose estate at Lanhydrock extended into the borough, recommended to the corporation his uncle, Francis Robartes, and his brother-in-law, John Legh, who were returned by the corporation unopposed, as was Lord Burford at a by-election caused by Robartes’s death in 1718. Thanking the corporation for their unanimous choice of Burford, Lord Radnor, who in 1716 had secured that the local assizes should in future be held alternately at Bodmin and Launceston, instead of solely at Launceston, wrote:
Chester was dominated by a neighbouring Tory family, the Grosvenors, who sat for it without a break from 1715 to 1874, for 42 years holding both seats. Another local Tory family, the Bunburys, sat for it in every Parliament from 1701 to 1747, with a break between 1727 and 1733, when the Grosvenors took both seats.
