Great Bedwyn

In 1766 Great Bedwyn came under the complete control of Lord Bruce (subsequently 1st Earl of Ailesbury), when he purchased Lord Verney’s 46 burgages. Bruce already owned as many himself and bought two more in 1787; when he obtained the nine church burgages under the Bedwyn Enclosure Act of 1792 he was in possession of all but one.Wilts. Arch. Mag. vi. 291 . He returned Members friendly to administration, sometimes from his family or circle, sometimes to oblige the government, as in April 1807 when he informed the King that he would ‘have a particular pleasure in choosing the King’s attorney or solicitor-general if they are either of them in want of a seat in Parliament and if his Majesty will be pleased to signify his commands to Lord Ailesbury on that occasion’. Offering a seat to Charles Philip Yorke in July 1809 he explained ‘I have never attached myself to anybody in the political way but to my sovereign’. Ailesbury was by no means averse to payment from his guests, in view of his ‘immense expense about the borough’, but he did not wish it to be known. His heir the 2nd Earl followed his father’s line after 1814. There was no contest between 1754 and the borough’s disfranchisement in 1832 and elections there were purely convivial occasions.Geo. III Corresp. iv. 3428; Add. 45042, f. 78; SRO GD224/663/9/2, 7; Wilts. RO 9, Ailesbury mss, Ward to Ailesbury, 30 June 1793, Ailesbury to Bruce, 1, 2 July 1802.