Borough

Wallingford was a venal and expensive borough. In 1792 Oldfield wrote bluntly that ‘the highest bidder is always chosen ... Corruption is brought there to such a system that a legal discovery is not likely to be made, unless by a difference among the interested parties.’ The historian of the borough declared that the poorer classes ‘regarded any attempt to bring about a reformation of the borough as an attack upon their vested interests, deserving of determined, if not vindictive, opposition’.J. K. Hedges, Hist. Wallingford, ii.

Six of the eight elections for Reading during this period were contested, and the contests were remarkably expensive; even John Dodd’s return in 1755, which did not go to a poll, was not a cheap affair. The election of 1754 between Strode (a Tory), Fane (an Opposition Whig), and Dodd (a court Whig) was particularly hotly contested. ‘The electors, principally of the court side, have been remarkably venal’, wrote the Rev. Ralph Shirley on 11 June 1754. ‘. ...

In 1754 the Duke of Cumberland, who resided at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park, had the chief interest, and the borough was managed by Henry Fox. The Duke of St. Albans had an interest dating back at least to 1722, and a number of local landowners had considerable influence. There was a large proportion of independent voters, and the borough was not easily managed.

Although neighbouring landowners had a natural interest in the borough, it did not amount to patronage—‘one of the few boroughs’, remarked Oldfield in 1792, ‘over which aristocratical influence or corruption has not yet been able to extend its control’. But Shelburne in his electoral list of 1761 placed Abingdon among the ‘venal boroughs’, apparently not without justification.

‘The Duke of Bedford and the corporation’, wrote Philip Yorke to his father, Lord Hardwicke, 5 Aug. 1753, ‘have settled their affairs for the next election. The Duke brings in Mr. Ongley, and the corporation Mr. Herne.’ But unrest among the Duke’s friends was reported from Bedford in March 1754. ‘Many here ...

On 6 May 1798 the heads of the leading interests in this fast expanding port, Lord Ely and Richard Nevill, came to an agreement ‘that a cordial union shall exist between them in the borough of Wexford’ under which each would return a Member and choose alternately the mayor, burgesses and an equal number of freemen, ‘each party to act as trustees for the other’. On 30 Nov. 1800 they agreed to the alternate nomination to the one seat surviving under the terms of the Union. This was confirmed on 16 June 1806 between Nevill and Ely’s heir who had succeeded on 22 Mar.

Before the Union the two leading interests in this close borough, the Tottenham and Leigh families who were intermarried, returned a Member each. From 1801 there was only one Member, so they maintained their agreement by nominating in turn and by practically restricting the electorate to the burgesses of the corporation.PRO 30/9/13, pt. 2, list of Irish cities and boroughs; Report on Mun. Corp. [I], H.C. 1835, xxviii. app. x, pt. 1, p. 562. Francis Leigh of Rosegarland returned members of his family.

William Handcock, who had represented the borough on his family interest since 1783, became sole proprietor at the Union, after buying out Sir Richard Bligh St. George, 2nd Bt., whose family had returned the other Member previously and had opposed the Union.PRO 30/9/13, pt. 2, Irish borough list. He requested sole patronage of Athlone from government in 1801, claiming that the corporation ‘belonged’ to him, and subsequently he referred to it as ‘exclusively mine’.Add. 35729, f. 71; Wellington mss, Handcock to Wellesley, 15 Mar.

A flourishing port, Waterford had a large, predominantly freeman electorate, the number of registered freeholders not exceeding 50. The governing body of 40 accordingly provided a focus for the contending interests of the local landowning families of Alcock, Bolton and Carew and of the commercial and banking house of Newport, which was said in 1795 to hold the corporation in thrall. They in turn had to contend with a small army of port officials and a well-do-do Catholic body representing four-fifths of the population, whose admission as freemen made them a force to be reckoned with.

The nominal patron of this small seaport was the 5th Duke of Devonshire, who owned two-thirds of the manor and would probably have been happy to pocket £15,000 from its disfranchisement at the Union. Owing to his absence and negligence, however, during which William Brabazon Ponsonby was his agent, his interest was reduced to a mere handful of freeholders.