Shropshire

Two families dominated elections at Bridgnorth: the Whitmores of Apley and the Actons of Aldenham. Both had property within the borough and estates nearby. The influence of the Whitmores was the greater. They owned more of the town and, although no Whitmore ever served as an alderman or a bailiff, the government of the corporation was usually in the hands of their supporters. The Weavers of Morville, another local family with property in the town and influence in the constituency, acted in concert with the Whitmores. There was also a sizable body of Dissenters in the borough. Ibid.

Bribery was usually an important factor in election contests at Bishop’s Castle, but the candidates were always either local men or the representatives of local electoral interests. In 1690 William Oakeley, a Tory, and Richard Mason, a Whig, were returned unopposed. Oakeley had sat for Bishop’s Castle before, and Mason was from a family with a particularly powerful interest in the borough. Mason died within a month of the election and was succeeded by Walter Waring, Oakeley’s nephew and also a Tory.

The chief interest in the borough 1754-90 was in the Forester family; but the Bridgemans, too, had a certain influence, exercised in alliance with the Foresters.Namier, Structure, 243-4. There were no contests during this period.

In 1754, and again in 1761, the Whitmores of Apley held undisputed sway at Bridgnorth, the other two families with property near or in the borough, the Actons of Aldenham and the Weavers of Morval (succeeded by the Blayneys) having become inactive. John Grey, brother of Lord Stamford, was a Whitmore nominee, but had the additional advantage of residing eight miles from Bridgnorth and of being a brother-in-law of Richard Acton.

Ludlow was entirely under the patronage of Henry Arthur Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, till about 1770 when he sold to Lord Clive his estate of Oakley Park, adjoining the borough. But the two families closely co-operated, and on 7 May 1784, the 2nd Lord Clive married the sister of the 2nd Lord Powis, whose estate she inherited on his death in 1801. Their joint interest in the borough was challenged in 1780 by Thomas Beale (probably of Heath House, Salop, some seven miles from Ludlow): that the threat was treated as serious is evidenced by the correspondence extant in the Powis mss.

Before 1722 the number of freemen exceeded 1,300. But by 1747 the corporation, allied to the Whigs, managed to reduce it to about 300, first by a decision of the House of Commons in 1723 which greatly narrowed down the boundaries of the parliamentary borough, and next by restricting admission to its freedom. The opposite interest was aided in its lawsuits against the corporation by neighbouring Tory country gentlemen whom it supported in parliamentary elections. The Dissenters, mostly Presbyterians, formed a third interest in the borough.

Bishop’s Castle was the one notoriously corrupt borough in Shropshire, and though neighbouring big landowners had a natural influence in it, there being several such competing interests, the borough was till the 1760’s open even to strangers. Perhaps the strongest single interest was that of the Walcots of Walcot Hall, about 2½ miles from Bishop’s Castle; next, of the Warings of Owlbury. Before the general election of 1761, Shelburne noted against Bishop’s Castle in his list of constituencies:Lansdowne mss.‘Contest—want money and not the present [Members]’.

The prevailing interest at Wenlock was that of the Forester family, of Willey Park nearby, who had represented the borough in Henry VIII’s reign and did so virtually without a break from 1688 until 1885. In 1790 George Forester retired after 30 years’ service and his cousin and heir at law Cecil Forester succeeded him for the next 30 years. The other seat was held by the Bridgeman family, second in point of influence, who collaborated with the Foresters, and like them, after going over to administration with the Portland Whigs, supported the government of the day.

The local ‘gentlemen of fortune’ continued to represent Shrewsbury throughout this period. None of them could command the representation, although Sir William Pulteney of Shrewsbury Castle was perfectly secure in his seat until his death in 1805.Oldfield, Boroughs, ii. 29; Rep. Hist. iv. 375. The other seat had been held since 1784 by John Hill, the younger brother of the county Member Sir Richard, who possessed a strong interest in the borough.

The Clive family had absorbed by purchase (1770) and subsequently by marriage (1784) the interest of the Herberts of Powis Castle at Ludlow. They returned one Member from 1790 to 1806 and both thereafter. Richard Payne Knight, the other Member, a local country gentleman with a seat six miles away, had been introduced in 1784 with Lord Powis’s concurrence rather than, as Oldfield would have it, ‘on the independent interest of the town’.Salop RO, Ludlow corpn. mss 356, Davies to Kinnersley, 20 Dec. 1783, Salway to same, 9 Jan. 1784; Oldfield, Hist. Boroughs, ii.