Oldfield’s analysis of the corporation in 1792 showed how completely it was under the control of the patron, Rev. Leonard Holmes (formerly Troughear) who had inherited it from his maternal uncle Thomas Holmes, Baron Holmes [I], in 1764. Holmes had not been seriously challenged since 1768, but there was a domestic contest in 1784 and his nominees in 1790 both attended their election, as well as paying £4,200 each for the honour. By February 1794 both Members for Newport, as well as Holmes’s nominee for Yarmouth, having deserted opposition for government, two church livings applied for by a relative of Holmes were granted by the lord chancellor at the Duke of Portland’s request ‘in reward of his uniform support of them’ and to the indignation of friends of longer standing such as Thomas Orde, governor of the Isle.
Holmes, who continued to sell the seats, was made an Irish peer in 1798. At this time Lord Bolton, whose family had been patrons of Newport earlier in the century, informed Pitt’s private secretary apropos of the war effort:
The corporation of Newport have been excited to a pretended intention of giving £500 but it was necessary to borrow the money and give security. Lord Holmes and Dr Worsley his son-in-law refused to give the security although they secured above £8,000 for the last sale of the seats, which they had stolen from government.
HMC 12th Report (9), p. 372.
On Holmes’s death without male issue in 1804, his elder daughter Elizabeth’s husband, Rev. Sir Henry Worsley, who took the additional name of Holmes, became patron. The seats were still sold—Lord Moira procured Sir John Doyle’s in 1806—to friends of government, though Worsley Holmes had to be placated with island patronage, of which he expected a large share on Lord Bolton’s death in 1807.
in the corporation
Number of voters: 24