An ‘intimate friend’ of the duke of Wellington, Fleming became notorious for his electoral shenanigans in Hampshire, where he sat as a Tory MP and was the driving force behind the local party for almost a quarter of a century.
Shortly before entering the Commons in 1820, Fleming was described to the premier Lord Liverpool as ‘a gentleman of very large fortune’, who was ‘independent of any party’ but ‘generally’ a supporter of ministers.
An unrepentant advocate of using ‘a certain expenditure of cash’ to win over political opponents, following the passage of reform Fleming spent a fortune contesting the new division of South Hampshire, where the bulk of his estates lay.
A fairly regular attender, Fleming’s voting record was predictably supportive of the Conservatives on most major issues. He broke ranks with Peel, however, to vote for repeal of the malt tax, 10 Mar. 1835, and to support relief from agricultural distress, 27 Apr. 1836. Somewhat surprisingly, he was also in the radical minority of 33 for an inquiry into the ‘most eligible site’ for the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament, 14 June 1838. In 1836 he was accused in a petition to the Commons of manufacturing county votes on the Isle of Wight, by making ‘gifts’ of 40s. freeholds to non-residents totalling £250. In response, in his first known speech of this period, he insisted on his ‘right to dispose of his property as he pleased’ and defended the legality of the votes, which had been upheld in the revising barristers’ courts.
Nearly all of Fleming’s remaining speeches related to the Southampton election of 1841. Accused by an election petition of funding bribery and corruption, and summoned to give evidence before the ensuing inquiry, 26 Apr. 1842, Fleming admitted organising the settlement of outstanding debts after the election, but insisted that they were ‘strictly legal expenses’ and refused to provide details of subscribers to the Conservatives’ election fund, saying that his communications had been confidential. Pressed again, he protested that ‘the money had been raised six weeks after the election had taken place and (striking his hand energetically upon the table), he would not under any circumstances betray the names of the parties from whom he had in confidence received the money’.
When Fleming was called again the next day, however, ‘out of regard to his personal feelings’ the petitioner’s counsel Alexander Cockburn, later Liberal MP for Southampton, did not persist with his question. After denying any involvement by the Carlton Club, to which he belonged, Fleming was allowed to stand down.
A peerage, however, was probably not what the premier Peel had in mind. Concerned that so many ‘foul transactions had been disclosed through the parliamentary inquiry’, as one local paper put it, Peel delayed the issue of a new writ, against Fleming’s wishes, and backed the appointment of another inquiry into whether Southampton should be disfranchised.
Southampton borough and county have always been mine; for years and years I have nominated the members ... Independent electors, I rely upon your public spirit to assist me in resisting this vile attempt of the Liberals to wrench your borough from me. If such things are to be submitted to, there is an end to freedom and independence.
http://www.willisfleming.org.uk/collections/family-and-estate-papers/pi…
After introducing the new MPs on 10 Aug., Fleming unexpectedly took the Chiltern Hundreds, citing the ‘increasing claims of my family’.
Fleming died two years later of ‘malignant fever’ whilst on board his yacht Syren in the Mediterranean. He had been sailing there for over a year, leaving his properties, as he informed Peel, ‘forlorn and forsaken’.
According to an obituarist, Fleming’s expenditure ‘in the town and neighbourhood’ of Southampton had ‘averaged’ a staggering £18,000 per year, and on his leaving England ‘the loss of such an expenditure’ was ‘most sensibly felt’. His ‘splendid mansion’ at North Stoneham, which was never completed, was also ‘supposed to have cost him £100,000’.