Tregony (UK Parliament constituency)
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| Tregony Borough constituency |
|
|---|---|
| Created: | 1562 |
| Abolished: | 1832 |
| Type: | House of Commons |
| Members: | two |
Tregony was a rotten borough in Cornwall which was represented in the Model Parliament of 1295, and returned two Members of Parliament to the English and later British Parliament continuously from 1562 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
Contents |
[edit] History
The borough consisted of the town of Tregony. Like most of the Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the Tudor period, it was a settlement of little importance or wealth even to begin with, and was not incorporated as a municipal borough until sixty years after it began to return members to Parliament in 1562.
Tregony was a potwalloper borough, meaning that every (male) householder with a separate fireplace on which a pot could be boiled was entitled to vote. The apparently democratic nature of this arrangement was a delusion in a borough as small and poor as Tregony, where the residents could not afford to defy their landlord and, indeed, regarded their vote as a means of income. Many of the houses in the borough were built purely for political purposes, and the borough itself was bought and sold for its political value on numerous occasions. In the 1760s, Viscount Falmouth (head of the Boscawen family) controlled the nomination to one of the two seats and William Trevanion the other; later the Earl of Darlington controlled both seats, together with others in Cornwall, but by the time of the Great Reform Act the patronage had been transferred again, to James Adam Gordon.
In 1831, the borough had a population of 1,127, and 234 houses. Nevertheless, because of the wide franchise it had a comparatively large electorate for the time, between 260 and 300 voters.
[edit] Members of Parliament
[edit] 1562-1660
- 1584-1585: Richard Grafton
- 1625: Sir Henry Carey
- 1640-1644: Sir Richard Vyvyan (Royalist) - - disabled to sit, January 1644
- 1640-1644: John Polwhele (Royalist) - - disabled to sit, January 1644
- 1647-1648: Sir Thomas Trevor - excluded in Pride's Purge, December 1648
- 1647-1653: John Carew
Tregony was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
- 1659: John Thomas
Long Parliament (restored)
- 1659-1660: ?
[edit] 1660-1832
| Year | First member | First party | Second member | Second party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 1660 | Sir John Temple | Edward Boscawen | ||||
| October 1660 | Sir Peter Courtney | |||||
| 1661 | Hugh Boscawen | Thomas Herle | ||||
| February 1679 | Robert Boscawen | |||||
| April 1679 | John Tanner | |||||
| August 1679 | Charles Trevanion | |||||
| 1685 | Charles Porter | |||||
| January 1689 | Charles Boscawen | Hugh Fortescue | ||||
| April 1689 | Robert Harley | |||||
| 1690 | Sir John Tremayne | |||||
| 1694 | The Earl of Kildare | |||||
| 1695 | Francis Robartes | James Montagu | ||||
| 1698 | Philip Meadowes | |||||
| 1701 | Hugh Fortescue | |||||
| 1702 | Hugh Boscawen | Joseph Sawle | ||||
| 1705 | John Trevanion | Sir Philip Meadowes | ||||
| 1708 | Anthony Nicoll | Thomas Herne | ||||
| October 1710 | Viscount Rialton | John Trevanion | ||||
| December 1710 | George Robinson | |||||
| April 1713 | Edward Southwell | |||||
| September 1713 | Sir Edmund Prideaux | James Craggs | ||||
| 1720 | Charles Talbot | |||||
| March 1721 | Daniel Pulteney | |||||
| November 1721 | John Merrill | |||||
| 1722 | James Cooke | |||||
| 1727 | Thomas Smith | John Goddard | ||||
| 1729 | Matthew Ducie Moreton | |||||
| 1734 | Henry Penton | |||||
| February 1737 | Sir Robert Cowan | |||||
| March 1737 | Joseph Gulston | |||||
| 1741 | Thomas Watts | |||||
| 1742 | George Cooke | |||||
| 1747 | William Trevanion | Claudius Amyand | ||||
| 1754 | John Fuller | |||||
| 1761 | Abraham Hume | |||||
| 1767 | Thomas Pownall | |||||
| 1768 | Hon. John Grey | |||||
| 1774 | Hon. George Lane Parker | Alexander Leith[1] | ||||
| 1780 | John Stephenson | John Dawes | ||||
| 1784 | Lloyd Kenyon[2] | Robert Kingsmill | ||||
| 1788 | Hon. Hugh Seymour Conway | |||||
| 1790 | John Stephenson | Matthew Montagu | ||||
| 1794 | Hon. Robert Stewart | |||||
| 1796 | Sir Lionel Copley | John Nicholls | ||||
| 1802 | Marquess of Blandford | Tory | Charles Cockerell | |||
| 1804 | George Woodford Thellusson | Tory | ||||
| 1806 | Godfrey Wentworth Wentworth | Whig | James O'Callaghan | Whig | ||
| 1808 | William Gore Langton | Whig | ||||
| 1812 | Alexander Cray Grant | Tory | William Holmes | Tory | ||
| 1818 | Viscount Barnard | Whig | James O'Callaghan | Whig | ||
| 1826[3] | Stephen Lushington | Whig | James Brougham | Whig | ||
| 1830 | James Adam Gordon | Tory | James Mackillop | Tory | ||
| 1831 | Lt Colonel Charles Arbuthnot | Tory | ||||
| 1832 | James Adam Gordon | Tory | ||||
| 1832 | Constituency abolished | |||||
Notes
- ^ Created a baronet as Sir Alexander Leith, November 1775
- ^ Created a baronet as Sir Lloyd Kenyon, July 1784
- ^ At the 1826 election the Returning Officer made a double return, naming Lushington and Brougham, who had received the most votes, but also the two Tory candidates, James Adam Gordon and James Mackillop. The Committee decided that Lushington and Brougham had been duly elected.
[edit] References
- Lewis Namier, "The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III" (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
- J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
- Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.
