Devon

Honiton had a very wide franchise, and was one of the most venal boroughs in the kingdom. The electorate, which included most adult male inhabitants, was poor, unruly, and of low social standing: the poll book of 1763Photostat copy in Guildhall Lib. does not record a single esquire, and few professional men—most of the voters were labourers, artisans, or small shopkeepers. Candidates were sought out, and even advertised for,Porritt, Unreformed House of Commons, i. 357. and contests were frequent and expensive.

Exeter, a cathedral city and port, was the centre of the serge-making industry. The corporation or chamber had considerable influence in elections and put forward its own candidates. In the eighteenth century, when the chamber was strongly Anglican, its candidates were invariably chosen from landed families living near Exeter.

A good many of the Dartmouth electors were connected with the customs house and the castle, and Dartmouth was a Government borough managed by Arthur Holdsworth, of an old Dartmouth merchant family, and since 1753 governor of Dartmouth castle. After Poole, Dartmouth was the chief English centre for the Newfoundland fisheries and trade. The two Members at the dissolution in 1754, Walter Carey and his step-son John Jeffreys, were again Government candidates, and Newcastle’s election list notes against their names: ‘Settled. See Mr. Holdsworth’s letters.’Add. 32995, ff.

The borough was shared by the Drake and Hobart families. Under proper management the number of burgages was kept down, and the creation of faggot votes was prevented. By 1754 only extreme neglect could have lost the borough to the two families. Sir Francis Henry Drake of Buckland Abbey, within three or four miles of Bere Alston, managed it for both; and when he sold his share in it to Hugh, 1st Duke of Northumberland, the Earl of Buckinghamshire did likewise. Northumberland, dying 6 June 1786, left Bere Alston to his second son, Lord Algernon Percy.

Neighbouring landowners, among others John Harris of Pickwell, John Clevland of Tapley, and the Bassets of Heanton, had some influence in the borough, but money counted for most. In 1754 the candidates were John Harris, George Amyand, and John Fortescue, who had contested the borough in 1748 and was now supported by the Duke of Bedford.Fortescue to Rob. Butcher (Bedford’s agent), 23 Sept. 1753, Bedford mss. Amyand’s election was managed by John Clevland sen.

In 1754 Ashburton was controlled by John Harris of Hayne, through his marriage to the heiress of the Tuckfields, who had owned a moiety of the manor. When his wife died, a month before the general election, the property passed to his step-daughter, Lady Orford. To James Buller she wrote, 5 Apr. 1754:Buller mss.

In 1754 Saltash was an Admiralty borough under the management of its secretary, John Clevland—he relied on his influence with the corporation and his friendship with James Buller, who had the leading local interest and whose complaisance made it unlikely that the right of the freeholders, if reasserted, would be exercised against the ministerial candidates.

Electoral influence was exercised at Totnes through the corporation, which had the power of creating freemen. A large municipal debt, which became increasingly unmanageable during the 18th century, was an important factor in ensuring the corporation’s subservience to beneficent patrons, either men of their own number or neighbouring landowners.PP (1835), xxiii. 641-5; P.

Since the bitter struggle of 1765 Tiverton had been under the joint control of Nathaniel Ryder, 1st Baron Harrowby, and his ally Sir John Duntze, an Exeter merchant and banker. The Ryders had no property in Tiverton, but their interest was the stronger of the two. It dated from the 1730s and was founded on and sustained by the provision of civil, military and ecclesiastical patronage for members of the corporation and their families and by loans and gifts to local tradesmen, especially during the wartime dislocation of the woollen trade.

Tavistock remained completely under the control of the Whig dukes of Bedford, who returned members of their family and political friends.