Callington (UK Parliament constituency)

Callington was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1585 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Reform Act 1832.

History

The borough consisted of most of the town of Callington in the East of Cornwall. Callington was the last of the Cornish boroughs to be enfranchised, returning its first members in 1585; like most of the Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the Tudor period, it was a rotten borough from the start, and was never substantial enough to have a mayor and corporation.

The right to vote in Callington was disputed until a decision of the House of Commons in 1821 settled it as resting with "freeholders of the borough and ... life-tenants of freeholders, resident for 40 days before the election and rated to the poor at 40 shillings or more". This considerably enlarged the electorate, for there had been only 42 voters in the borough in 1816, but the Parliamentary return of 1831 reported that 225 were qualified. In the 18th century the power of the "patron" to influence the voters in Callington was considered absolute; the patronage originally rested with the Rolle family, then passed to the Dowager Lady Orford, mother of The Earl of Orford. By 1816 it had passed to Lord Clinton ^[1], but was no longer as secure as it had been, so that the Coryton family was sufficiently influential to challenge his power on occasion.

In 1831, the borough had a population of 1,082, and 225 houses; the part of the town outside the borough boundaries contained only a further eight houses, leaving no scope to enlarge it. It was disfranchised by the Great Reform Act in 1832.

Members of Parliament

1585-1640

1640-1832

Notes

1. ^ The WP article "Baron Clinton" gives his name as Robert Cotton St John Trefusis, 18th Baron Clinton.
2. ^ Maija Jansson in Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) lists William Rolle rather than Henry Rolle as MP in 1614
3. ^ Constable was also elected for Scarborough, and probably never sat for Callington
4. ^ Stratton's election in 1778 was declared void, but he won the 1779 by-election that resulted
5. ^ This Ambrose St John was clearly NOT Ambrose St John (1815-1875)
6. ^ The Earls of Haddington were referred to as "Lord Binning", before succeeding their fathers. Thomas Hamilton became the 9th Earl in 1828.
7. ^ Robinson and Lygon were initially declared re-elected in 1820, defeating Attwood and Thompson, but the result was reversed on petition

References

• D Brunton & D H Pennington, “Members of the Long Parliament” (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
• "Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803" (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
• Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
• 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)
• Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria (London, 1750) [2]
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 1)