Staffordshire

‘Situated much about the midst of England’, Staffordshire lies on the south-western edge of the Pennines and is bounded by Cheshire, Derbyshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire. In the seventeenth century, the northern parts of the county, a hilly region, were full of ‘great heaths and moors’, which afforded ‘good pasturage and breed very good cattle’. R. Blome, Britannia (1673), 201. The River Trent and its tributaries dominate the county’s central plain, and here there was a largely arable economy. D. Palliser, ‘Dearth and disease in Staffs.

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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...

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