Borough

Newcastle-under-Lyme was always classed as a Leveson Gower borough, and only once during this period was that interest seriously challenged. Yet it had a fairly large electorate, and could not have been easy to manage. In 1767 Lord Clive received a letter from three freemen offering the support of 120 more ’to serve any gentleman... willing to offer himself a candidate in opposition ot the present interest’.Signed by Rich. Rhodes, Geo. Taylor, and Wm. Hill, 20 Nov. 1767, Clive mss. Lord Gower is said to have controlled the borough ’in part by lavish hospitality...

It was said of Bishop’s Castle that the inhabitants had no trade or business except that of elections, which they found very profitable.J. R. Burton, ’Two Elections for Bishop’s Castle in the 18th Cent.’, Salop Arch. Soc. Trans. (ser. 3), ix.

In 1715 Higham Ferrers, consisting of about 250 houses, was controlled by Thomas Wentworth, a Whig, who had bought the manor, including most of the town, from the last Earl of Feversham.

King’s Lynn was dominated by the Turners, a leading town family, in alliance with the Walpoles, each returning one Member.

From 1688 and until 1727 there was no predominant interest at Ludlow, which normally chose its representatives from among the neighbouring landowners, notably the Herberts of Oakley, the Baldwyns of Stokesay, and the Walcots of Bitterley and Walcot. The Duke of Chandos also had an interest through his close connexion with Humphrey Walcot as well as from his purchase of the Bishop’s Castle estate. Chandos was mainly responsible for procuring the return in 1719 of Sir Robert Raymond,Chandos to John Baldwyn, 9 Nov., 21 Dec.

At George I’s accession the chief interests at Yarmouth were in two local landowners, Anthony Morgan, a Whig, and Henry Holmes, a Tory. In 1715 Holmes and another Tory, Sir Robert Raymond, defeated Morgan and another Whig, Sir Theodore Janssen, who petitioned on the ground that 27 of their opponents’ voters were unqualified, under a by-law passed by the corporation in 1670 providing that no new members should be admitted unless the mayor and five other members, known as chief burgesses, were present.

During the first ten years of this period Yarmouth was controlled by Thomas Holmes (created in 1760 Baron Holmes in the Irish peerage), and managed by him on behalf of Government. There was an anti-Holmes party in the Isle of Wight, headed by Sir Thomas Worsley and Lord Carnarvon; and when Holmes died in July 1764 they hoped to take over from him. But the appointment of governor of the Isle of Wight was given to Hans Stanley, who was committed to neither side.

At George I’s accession the chief interest in Newtown was that of the Worsleys, Tories, who in alliance with other burgage holders, notably the Holmes family, had held both seats since 1705. In 1715 Sir Robert Worsley and his cousin, James Worsley, were returned unopposed, as was his brother, Charles, in conjunction with another Tory, William Stephens, recommended by Henry Holmes, in 1722.T.

In 1715 the Newport seats were filled by Anthony Morgan, a government supporter, and William Stephens, a local Tory landowner, without opposition, though Morgan, who had been appointed lieutenant governor of the Isle of Wight after George I’s accession, tried to persuade the Government to put up a second candidate, assuring them that ’it will be an easy matter to bring in two Whigs at that corporation’.T. Stephens, The Castle Builders, 41. At all subsequent elections both seats were filled on the recommendation of the Administration without a contest. On 30 Jan.