At Maidstone Lord Aylesford and Lord Romney both had an old-established interest; there was a strong independent party, nurtured by the Dissenters (in 1809 estimated at nearly half the borough); and a minor Government interest from the dockyards at Rochester, Chatham, and Deptford.
The presence of the naval dockyard and the victualling office gave the Admiralty a permanent interest at Rochester, but in one seat only was it secure and contests were frequent. Sir Charles Middleton, the Admiralty Member in the Parliament of 1784, complained to ministers that the freemen had ‘reaped very little advantage from the being the side of government’,PRO 30/8/173, ff.
The arrangement whereby the Admiralty and the Ordnance returned a Member each was maintained without difficulty until 1802. Management of the borough was in the hands of the latter department. The 3rd Duke of Richmond, then master general of the Ordnance, informed Pitt, 22 June 1790, ‘Queenborough is over as we would wish though there was a contest’.PRO 30/8/171, f. 149. One of the defeated candidates was the nabob William Popham, late Member for Milborne Port, who was in opposition to Pitt.
Maidstone was an open borough with a reputation for venality. Oldfield stated that successful candidates spent between £3,000 and £5,000 per election and contests were insisted upon. Sir Matthew Bloxam had spent £15,000 by 1802, in four elections.Rep. Hist. iv. 76; Spencer mss, Bloxam to Spencer, 30 July 1802. Over a third of the electors were non-resident, but no poll lasted more than three days. There were two parties in the town, Red (or Purple) and Blue, the former ministerialist and the latter independent.
Of nine Members elected for Canterbury in this period only one, Lushington, cut any kind of figure in the House, for all the fierce contests that they faced to get there. Only citizens or Kentish gentry won the seats, and as over two-fifths of the large and growing electorate were non-resident, candidates could expect much expense. This was exacerbated, as at Maidstone, by the party rivalry between Reds and Blues, the latter supporting the Whigs.
Owing to the proximity of Chatham dockyard the Admiralty was the largest employer at Rochester, usually nominating both Members, one of whom was always an admiral. Opposition took the form of demanding that the town should be represented by two admirals. In 1734 Admiral Sir John Norris was put up unsuccessfully without his consent against Newcastle’s brother-in-law, David Polhill, who wrote to Walpole, 5 Sept. 1733:
The chief interest at Queenborough was that of the Admiralty, on whom the inhabitants depended for employment. Elections were managed by the corporation through their power of creating new freemen. Under George I all the Members returned were government supporters, but it was not till the next reign that the Administration gained complete control of the borough.
Maidstone, the 2nd Lord Egmont wrote in his electoral survey, c.1749-50, ‘is a perplexed interest’. The chief interests in 1715 were those of the Finches, earls of Aylesford, Tories, and the Marshams, later Lords Romney, Whigs; but for nearly 30 years after the 1st Lord’s death in 1724, his successor took no part in local politics.
In Canterbury, one of the nineteen cities and towns being counties in themselves, the returning officer was a sheriff, appointed by the corporation.
The proximity of the Chatham shipyard gave the Government a strong interest in Rochester, and in normal times the cathedral chapter had considerable influence, in 1686 estimated at 50 votes. In 1660 Peter Pett, navy commissioner at Chatham, who had represented the city in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, and John Marsham, a neighbouring country gentleman, were returned. Marsham had been a Cavalier and Pett was trying to live down his record of support for Commonwealth and Protectorate.
