A memorandum on Totnes drawn up in 1747 for Pelham points out that ‘the mayor with a majority of the aldermen present in court have the power to make what number of freemen they think fit’, so that ‘whoever hath the majority of aldermen must in consequence prevail’.‘The Corporation of Totnes’, Newcastle (Clumber) mss, on which the above account is based.
Tiverton was managed for the Government by Sir William Yonge, recorder of the borough 1725-48, in alliance with Oliver Peard, four times mayor. Martin Dunsford, historian of the town and prominent in its politics, writes that Yonge ‘had great influence over the leading members of the corporation of Tiverton for many years and generally directed their choice of burgesses in Parliament’. He describes Peard as ‘the most considerable merchant that ever lived in Tiverton’.
Tavistock was controlled by the dukes of Bedford, who as lords of the manor nominated the returning officer and owned most of the town and the land round it. After 1715 the only contested election was that of 1734, when the 4th Duke replaced the Members who had represented it under his predecessor by his own nominees. The 2nd Lord Egmont wrote of Tavistock in his electoral survey, c.1749-50: ‘in the Duke of Bedford’.
The corporation of Plympton were under the influence of the Treby and Edgcumbe families, who shared the representation, each nominating to one seat in the government interest. The second Lord Egmont wrote in his electoral survey, c.1749-50: ‘Between Treby and Lord Edgcumbe at present, but Treby will defeat him with proper helps in time’.
The control of Plymouth was in the Admiralty. Under Walpole it was managed for the Government by George Treby, who had property and an interest there.Geo. Treby to Walpole, 4 Aug. 1727, 30 Apr. 1734, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss. In 1739 the Commons restricted the right of election, previously by usage in the freemen and freeholders, to the freemen only, unseating John Rogers, who had been elected largely by the freeholders,CJ, xxiii.
At George I’s accession the principal interest at Okehampton was divided between the proprietors of the barony, notably the Mohuns, their relations by marriage, the Harrises of Hayne, who had some interest of their own, and the Northmores, a town family,Lysons, Mag. Brit. Devon, ii. 371-2; W. Bridges, Okehampton, 85, 87.the last two sharing the representation in 1715.
Honiton was a venal borough with a wide franchise. The principal interests were those of the Tory Courtenays of Powderham, lords of the manor since the fourteenth century, who appointed the portreeve, the returning officer of the borough, and the Whig Yonges of Colyton, near Honiton, who held the estate of Batishorn in the town, and commanded the popular vote.CJ, xx. 348; A. Farquharson, Honiton, 8-9, 37. After an uncontested by-election in 1724 a number of the inhabitant householders not paying scot and lot petitioned the Commons, claiming the right to vote.
At Exeter candidates were put up by the corporation, a strongly high church body, who nominated local Tory gentlemen. Two Tories were returned unopposed in 1715, and after a contest in 1722; but in 1727 one seat had to be conceded to the Whigs, who in 1734 captured both seats. Before the next general election the corporation created 240 honorary freemen, ‘composed of the most zealous gentlemen, clergy, and attorneys of the Tory party’,Sir Hen. Drake to Pelham, 16 Sept.
Dartmouth passed under government control owing to dissensions between the leading local Tory families, three of whom contested the borough in 1715.Russell, 144. In 1716 Arthur Holdsworth, a leading Newfoundland merchant, was first elected mayor; by 1719, when he completed his second term of office, the Holdsworths and allied Whig families had a majority on the corporation; and from 1722 until 1754 the borough was managed locally for the Government by the Holdsworths under the direction successively of Lord Chancellor King,
At George I’s accession the representation of Bere Alston was shared by Thomas Grey, 2nd Earl of Stamford, who was lord of the manors of Bere and Landrake, and Sir Francis Drake, 4th Bt., of Buckland Abbey, three or four miles from the borough. On Stamford’s death in 1720 his interest passed to his nephew, Sir John Hobart.Trans. Dev. Assoc. xli. 155-6.
On 20 Jan. 1721 Drake wrote to Lord Chief Justice King, a former M.P. for Bere Alston:
