In 1715 the chief burgage owners at Whitchurch were Thomas Vernon, a Tory, who returned himself, and John Wallop, a neighbouring Whig landowner, who returned General Carpenter. On Vernon’s expulsion from the House of Commons in 1721, Wallop, now Lord Lymington, put up his friend John Conduitt, on the understanding that Conduitt should make way for Wallop’s son when the boy came of age. Returned on petition, Conduitt was re-elected with Vernon at the general election of 1722.
At Stockbridge, a notoriously venal borough, elections depended on securing the bailiff, who was the returning officer. In 1715, when two Whigs, Thomas Brodrick and Martin Bladen, were returned, their opponents petitioned on the ground that the bailiff, ‘a known agent’ of the sitting Members, had polled a number of unqualified voters for his clients.CJ, xviii. 35. The petition was not heard. On 6 Feb. 1720 Brodrick wrote:
The chief interest in Southampton was that of the corporation, consisting of the mayor, recorder, sheriff, two bailiffs, and all who had served in those offices. The corporation had the power of creating unlimited new freemen and the returning officers were the mayor and bailiffs. Members returned were usually neighbouring landowners or persons with strong local connexions.
An Admiralty borough, Portsmouth was managed by channelling local patronage through the corporation, who controlled the representation by their power to create freemen. Soon after George I’s accession its governor, Lord North and Grey, an extreme Tory, was informed by his agent there that Sir Charles Wager had come down, caused 59 new freemen to be admitted, and deprived the agent of his receivership of the land tax. Next month Lord North was dismissed.John Mellish to North, 11 Sept.
During this period the electorate of Petersfield was enlarged by the practice of splitting some of the ancient burgages into several separate tenements, which were then conveyed temporarily to friends or agents of the candidates. In the petition proceedings after the by-election in 1727, the petitioner and the sitting Member objected respectively to 23 and 94 split votes out of a total of 299. Similar charges were made by the petitioner in 1734.CJ, xx. 859-61; xxii. 336.
The representation of Lymington was shared by the Powletts, dukes of Bolton, lords lieutenant of Hampshire, with the Burrards, a local family who managed the borough, packing the corporation so successfully that in 1722 Paul Burrard said ‘all the old burgesses now alive (except one) from the year 1686 to 1701, were made by us’. When in 1722 Lord William Powlett attempted to secure the second seat, Paul Burrard successfully objected, pointing out to him:
The right of election at Andover was in the corporation, who allowed John Wallop, Lord Lymington, a neighbouring landowner, to nominate one Member. The other seat was filled by their recorder, William Guidott, till 1727, when Charles Colyear reported to Walpole:
Lord Cutts, a subsequent governor of the Isle of Wight, wrote of Yarmouth:
The corporation consists of a mayor and 12 aldermen, who have a power to add as many freemen to the corporation as they please (who have all of them voices in the election of Members of Parliament), insomuch that the mayor and any five of the aldermen can turn the elections as they think fit.
The roll of freemen at Winchester was controlled by the corporation, who nominated a small number of non-residents, although, in the absence of close contests, they seldom exercised their franchise. In this Anglican stronghold there was no discrimination against Roman Catholics, who were always represented on the corporation after the Restoration. All the candidates may be considered gentry, except the townsman Thomas Muspratt in 1660 and the court lawyer Charles Hanses in 1685.
The purchase by the Wallops in 1636 of Hurstbourne Priors, which became their principal residence, did not give them immediate control of the neighbouring borough of Whitchurch, but by 1660 it had become established. They used their interest tactfully, never claiming more than one seat for the family, and allowing the other to be occupied by a neighbouring gentleman of similar religious and political outlook.
