Defoe described Richmond, and the surrounding areas, as being full of
clothing [manufacture], and all the people clothiers; here you see all the people, great and small, a knitting; and at Richmond you have a market for woollen or yarn stockings, which they make very coarse and ordinary and they are sold accordingly.
During James II’s reign Pontefract’s corporation, which consisted of a mayor elected annually by the borough’s burgesses, a recorder and 12 aldermen, was remodelled on three separate occasions. The extent of the confusion this created in corporate government was indicated by the three large-scale re-elections of existing aldermen between 1688 and 1691 in an effort to secure the legal standing of the corporation in accordance with the 1676 charter. Corporate disputes were, however, common throughout the 1690s.
The bishop of Durham was lord of the manor of Northallerton, at whose court the returning officer was chosen. In the early 18th century Browne Willis* noted that there were 220 houses in the town,
of which all but 23 are borough houses and have votes for Members of Parliament. In the middle of the street is an ordinary sessions house where the Members are chosen who, having bought up considerably the better half of the burgage tenements, thereby secure their elections.
Defoe found the town remarkable for its religious and party-political profile:
Malton was a ‘small market town’ which had no corporation, and was governed instead ‘by a bailiff who, with the burgesses of the borough, elect the Members of Parliament’. When Celia Fiennes visited it in 1697, she described it as
Browne Willis* described Knaresborough as ‘a well built town and hath a good market’. At the Restoration, the 1st Earl of Burlington (Richard Boyle†), had been granted the hereditary office of steward of the honor of Knaresborough and constable of the castle, which descended in 1698 to his grandson the 2nd Earl (Hon. Charles Boyle I*), and enabled him to nominate the bailiff, who acted as returning officer. There was no corporation and the bailiff elected the Members with the burgage holders.
In the late 17th century Hull was developing into one of the most important and prosperous towns in Yorkshire. The strategic importance of Hull had been demonstrated during the Civil War, so that it was natural that the town should have one of the strongest garrisons in England. However, Hull’s growing importance in the late 17th century was primarily due to an economic revival in the locality.
Browne Willis* described Hedon as no longer ‘a fair haven town’, but one standing about a mile within a creek overgrown ‘with flags and reeds and the haven is very sadly decayed’. Defoe’s prediction that its former prosperity as a port might be revived, so that it would one day rival the neighbouring town of Kingston-upon-Hull, was never realized, and it owed its prosperity to elections rather than to trade. Members of Parliament had to purchase their freedom before being chosen – at a price set by the corporation.
Writing of Boroughbridge, Defoe noted that ‘there is something very singular at this town, and which is not to be found in any other part of England or Scotland, namely, two borough towns in one parish, and each sending two members to Parliament’. The other borough was Aldborough, the original parish town. Browne Willis* described Boroughbridge as ‘a poor-built town of about 90 houses, of which 68 are borough houses and have votes for Members’.
Beverley, a ‘large market town’, was an attractive place of residence for the East Riding gentry, many of whom kept a town house there, ‘upon account of its pleasant situation for game, nearness to York, and goodness of the town’. However, the local cloth-making industry was in decline, and the corporation, consisting of a mayor, recorder, 12 aldermen or ‘governors’, and 13 capital burgesses, relied on the generosity of its Members of Parliament to provide for their needs. The chief interests were traditionally those of the Wartons of Beverley and the Hothams of Scorborough.
In the 1730s Browne Willis described Aldborough as ‘a scattered village’ of about 100 houses, of which 85 were ‘borough houses’, though it is probable that there were only 50 such houses in the early 1690s. There was no town hall and elections took place in the church. All the borough houses appear to have been owned by the lord of the manor, Sir Michael Wentworth of Woolley, at whose court leet the bailiff, who acted as returning officer, was chosen.
