Devon

With its population of some 13,000 in 1689 and its prominence in trade and woollen manufacture, Exeter was one of the four or five leading cities in the kingdom. Politically, it occupied a key position in the south-west. As Lord Poulett, a sometime lord lieutenant of Devon, commented in 1705, ‘the spirit of that city does not only in a great degree influence Devonshire, but Cornwall also’. There was a strong tradition of Whiggish politics in the city, dating back to the Civil War and underpinned by the influence of the powerful Presbyterian minority who provided in the region of 500 votes.

Bere Alston was arguably the most nondescript of Devon’s boroughs, consisting of ‘a few cob cottages, a market house and a poor house’. Browne Willis* observed that there were fewer than ‘80 poor houses’. Several ‘persons of quality’ owned freeholds and property in the borough, though by far the largest landowner was Sir Francis Drake, 3rd Bt. In 1690 the lordship of the manor was in the hands of Sir John Maynard*, a friend of Drake to whom he had granted the leases of mills and other borough property.

Barnstaple’s economic decline was well advanced by the late 17th century, much of its trade in wool having been lost to nearby Bideford. Control over the town’s parliamentary seats during this period was shared between the corporation and the proprietors of the adjacent manor of Raleigh. The Chichester family had been the chief gentry family in the Barnstaple area for many generations, the manor having been in their possession for much of the century.

Ashburton, which consisted ‘chiefly of one long street’, was the principal town in south Devon and was dominated by the woollen industry. Elections were mainly under the control of the gentry owners of the two moieties of the manor, although the extent to which they might exert such control was often determined by the inclinations of the ‘independent interest’ within the town, an important element of which was the Dissenting tradesmen (indeed the portreeve and leading inhabitants petitioned in December 1696 against the landed qualification proposed in a bill regulating elections).

A great deal depended at Totnes upon control of the corporation. The Duke of Bolton, the Duke of Somerset, and a number of smaller men had influence, and they competed against each other for Government support. Government could only bring its influence to bear through alliance with a local interest, and the electoral scene was always shifting.

Tiverton was the centre of the Devon cloth making industry; in 1754 it had a population of about 8,000, many of them Dissenters. In the first half of the eighteenth century Sir William Yonge had the principal interest. Dudley Ryder, a prominent Government lawyer who rose to be lord chief justice of the King’s bench, was first elected for Tiverton in 1734. Ryder had no property or natural influence there, but with the help of Government patronage he built up an interest which supplanted that of Yonge.

Tavistock was a complete pocket borough of the Duke of Bedford. Richard Rigby, thanking the Duke for his election, wrote on as Apr. 1754:Bedford mss 30, f. y38.

At Tavistock ... I saw more warmth and affection for you than you can imagine. There does not seem to be a single negative to your will in the whole town, nor would it be very safe in any one to offer it.

The same holds good throughout the period.

The power of creating new freemen was in the corporation, which in effect controlled the borough. The corporation was under the influence of two families, the Edgcumbes and the Trebys, who each nominated to one seat. The Edgcumbe seat was (except in 1768) always sold to Administration, the Treby seat when not wanted by the family themselves; and Lord Edgcumbe acted as intermediary with Government.

In 1754 Lord Barrington was put up for Plymouth while still a lord of the Admiralty, but by the time he was elected he had been appointed master of the great wardrobe. ‘It will make no variation to our sentiments’, wrote to him one of the chief men in the corporation, ‘as the borough is truly loyal, and from our knowledge of your Lordship, as well as the interest we have always espoused of the Admiralty.’Barrington mss. Barrington represented Plymouth for the next 24 years without ever having to fight an election.

Thomas Pitt of Boconnoc had a long-standing interest at Okehampton. Sir George Lyttelton was first returned there on his interest, but by 1747 had established himself sufficiently to withstand Pitt’s effort to turn him out. The Duke of Bedford, encouraged by Henry Pelham, also cultivated an interest in the borough. By 1754 Pitt, in hopeless financial straits, had pawned his interest to the Administration, while Bedford had gone into opposition; but a compromise was settled concerning Okehampton.