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

Long Parliament

  • 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

Third Protectorate Parliament

  • 1659: John Thomas

Long Parliament (restored)

  • 1659-1660: ?
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[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 Whig
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 [1] 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[2] Claudius Amyand
1754 John Fuller
1761 Abraham Hume
1767 Thomas Pownall
1768 Hon. John Grey
1774 Hon. George Lane Parker Alexander Leith[3]
1780 John Stephenson John Dawes
1784 Lloyd Kenyon[4] 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[5] 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

  1. ^ This John Trevanion was NOT John Trevanion, the Civil War hero, who died in 1643.
  2. ^ William Trevanion died 1767 according to ['General history: Gentry', Magna Britannia: volume 3: Cornwall (1814), pp. XCVIII-CXVIII. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=50617. Date accessed: 21 May 2008.]
  3. ^ Created a baronet as Sir Alexander Leith, November 1775
  4. ^ Created a baronet as Sir Lloyd Kenyon, July 1784
  5. ^ 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)
  • Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
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