County

The Dukes of Newcastle and Portland had most to say in county elections. Portland had returned his brothers since 1775 and Newcastle, with no member of his family available, stood behind Pierrepont, an independent country gentleman, from his first election in 1778. There had been no contest since 1722. During the minority of the 4th Duke of Newcastle, Pierrepont, created Viscount Newark in 1796, secured the return of two sons in succession, as colleagues to Portland’s second son.

At the dissolution of 1790 neither sitting Member was directly beholden to Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, whose family had controlled one seat since the 1760s. Sir William Middleton of Belsay had been returned at three successive general elections as the candidate of the independent gentlemen; and Charles Grey, elected in 1786 on the elevation to the peerage of Northumberland’s brother, was not an Alnwick nominee as such, although the duke must have at least acquiesced in his return.

There had been no contest for the county since 1748 and its representation remained in the hands of the country gentlemen until 1806, despite the strength of the aristocratic landowners, who were evidently disinclined to dispute it.Oldfield, Rep. Hist. iv. 272; E. G. Forrester, Northants. Elections and Electioneering 1695-1832. In 1784, by a compromise, the Foxite Powys of Lilford was joined by a Pittite, Langham of Cottesbrooke. Sir James Langham informed Pitt, 4 Jan.

The dominant figure in county politics throughout this period was Thomas William Coke of Holkham: a Foxite Whig of boundless self-confidence, worth £20,000 a year, he could not stomach his exclusion from the county seat in 1784, as he was ‘not conscious of having done anything to forfeit his position’.Norf. Chron. 26 June 1790. His first object was to regain the seat, which he did with ease in 1790. Subsequently he aimed to secure the return of two Whigs for the county, which he achieved from 1797 to 1817, when a third attempt to contest this monopoly was successful.

Since the 5th Duke of Beaufort had purchased the Usk estate in 1771, he and the Morgan family of Tredegar possessed about equal estates in the county (said to be worth about £12,000 p.a. in 1795).W. T. Morgan, JNLW, x. (1957), 167; E. E. Havill, ‘Parl. Rep. Mon. 1536-1832’ (Univ. of Wales M. A. thesis, 1949); R. D. Rees, ‘Parl. Rep. S. Wales 1790-1830’ (Reading Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1962), i. 249; Farington Diary (Yale ed.), ii.

The number of liverymen (i.e. freemen attached to the City companies and thereby entitled to vote) increased steadily in this period, though London still did not have as many voters, in practice, as Westminster. As Oldfield pointed out, if the franchise had been in the freemen at large the number of electors would have been ten times as great, and if it had been in the inhabitant householders it would have been 31,000.

Urban development and the increase in population in the second half of the 18th century had a marked effect on the electoral geography of Middlesex. In the census of 1801 the ‘out’-parishes, where urbanization had its most obvious impact, were extended to include Chiswick, Ealing, Edmonton, Tottenham, Enfield, Harrow, Twickenham, Staines and Uxbridge. The county was being opened up as a residential ‘dormitory’ for prosperous London merchants, and although the process had not gone far there had been a significant penetration of the country by the town.

There were too many aristocratic landowners in Lincolnshire, as well as too many independent freeholders, to allow of a predominant interest. Yet the peace of the county remained undisturbed from 1724 to 1807, despite some alarms, and one seat was held by one family, the Anderson Pelhams of Brocklesby, from 1774 to 1802 and from 1807 to 1823, if Robert Vyner II, who succeeded his half-brother Charles Anderson Pelham on the latter’s elevation to the peerage as Lord Yarborough in 1794, be counted as one of the family.

Since 1780 a compromise had operated whereby the 4th Duke of Rutland, the dominant peer, returned one Member on his interest (the Orange) and the independent gentry (the Blues) returned the other. The 4th Duke died in 1787 leaving three infant sons and his duchess to manage his interest in conjunction with Pitt and the Duke of Beaufort. Not until 1806 was there a Rutland family nominee and the compromise was maintained throughout the period.

The representation of Lancashire continued to be shared between the Whig Edward Smith Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, and what Oldfield referred to in 1792 as the ‘independent’ gentry and in 1816 as ‘the old Tory families’.Oldfield, Boroughs (1792), ii. 179 and Rep. Hist. iv. 89. There was little electoral excitement in this period. In 1796, both sitting Members, Derby’s cousin Col.