Cornwall

In the middle ages, Tregony had been a town of some significance, pre-dating Truro and Penryn as the main port of the Fal estuary. Parochial Hist. of Cornw. i. 282. Despite the powerful patronage of the Pomeroy family as lords of the manor, the silting of the river had choked Tregony’s economy by the early sixteenth century, and a century later it was dismissed by Richard Carew† as ‘not specially memorable … for any extraordinary worth or accident’. Parochial Hist. of Cornw. i. 278, 282-3; Carew, Survey, f.

A parliamentary borough since the middle ages, Helston owed its prosperity to its dual role as market town for the Lizard peninsula and entrepôt for the tin trade of western Cornwall. In 1642 it had a population of perhaps 1,000, and 20 years later it could boast 17 houses with five or more hearths. Cornw. Protestation Returns, 12; Cornw.

Grampound, granted its first charter in the fourteenth century, was closely connected with the duchy of Cornwall, whose manor of Tibesta surrounded the borough. Parl. Surv. Duchy Cornw. ii.

From 1715 to 1734 one seat at St. Ives was controlled by Sir John Hobart, who had the ’great tithe’ on pilchards and herrings, and built up a strong interest in the corporation, spending £2,000 on the contested election of 1722 and £500 on the unopposed 1722 election.Hobart Pprs. Norwich City Central Lib. NRS 21140, 75 x 1 and 2. The other seat was controlled by Charles Powlett, M.P., 2nd Duke of Bolton, recorder of the borough and lord of the manor.J.H. Matthews, St.