The initiative in the borough lay with the owners of the nine capital burgages assigned to the bailiffs, two of whom, in rotation, named the returning officer. Between 1705 and 1780 the Medlycott family, who owned four of them, shared control with the successive owners of the other five. The two parties fell out, so there were contests in 1772 and 1774, but in 1780 Edward Walter was duped by government into selling his five burgages to Thomas Hutchings Medlycott.
Ilchester’s unsavoury reputation as a venal borough continued in this period: as a local innkeeper put it, ‘damn me if Ilchester is worth living in without there are hang-fairs and good elections’. After the death of the patron Thomas Lockyer in 1785, control of the borough was contested until 1806.
John, 4th Earl Poulett, chosen recorder of the borough in succession to his father in 1788, entered upon a very uneasy electoral inheritance. The sitting Members, both friends of Pitt’s government like himself, were uncertain of their future. Robert Thornton, whom Poulett claimed to have sponsored, was supported by some of the corporation for the recordership in competition with his patron.
Since 1780 the corporation had returned Lord Bayham, son of their recorder Lord Camden, who regarded his heir’s seat as safe as long as he lived,Camden mss, Camden to his daughter Frances Stewart, 4 Dec. 1784. with Abel Moysey, an influential corporator, who voted with opposition. The latter had managed to foil an attempt to bring in Pitt, the prime minister, whose father had sat for Bath, in conjunction with Bayham, in 1784.
Elections at Wells were controlled by the corporation, a Tory body, who could manipulate the franchise by creating honorary freemen and through the power of the mayor as returning officer to decide who was entitled to vote. At every election but that of 1741, which was compromised, there was a contest on party lines, resulting in the return of the opposition candidates, followed by a petition from the unsuccessful government candidates, alleging partiality and malpractices on the part of the returning officer.
In 1715 two Tories were re-elected against two Whigs after a violent contest.J. Toulmin, Taunton, 315. Petitions alleging partiality by the mayor as returning officer in accepting unqualified Tory votes were heard on eleven days at the bar of the House, who awarded the seats to the Whig candidates, rejecting a motion, presumably in the interests of the sitting Members, that
At the beginning of the eighteenth century both Minehead seats were controlled by the Luttrells of Dunster Castle, Tories, through their right as lords of the manor to appoint the constables, who acted as returning officers. Their monopoly of the representation was resented by a section of the inhabitants, who took advantage of the minority of Alexander Luttrell to raise an opposition to the castle interest.
Milborne Port elections were controlled by the owners of nine capital burgages, whose holders, known as capital bailiffs, constituted the government of the borough. Every year in rotation two of these capital bailiffs chose two deputies to execute certain functions, including those of returning officers, but there was some doubt as to whether the returning officer should be a capital or a deputy bailiff.
The chief interest in the venalFrancis Fane to Newcastle, 29 Sept. 1756, Add. 32867, f. 474. borough of Ilchester was that of the Lockyers, a local family of wealthy business men, with estates in and about the borough, which from 1727 they managed in the government interest. Three of the Members returned during this period— Hopkins, Brown, and Thomas Lockyer— were noted misers.
In 1715 one of the Bridgwater seats was held by George Dodington, whose family estate was near the borough, where he had the government interest, derived from the customs and excise officers at the port. Both interests were inherited by his nephew, Bubb Dodington, who shared the representation with local Tory country gentlemen till 1741.
