Mitchell (UK Parliament constituency)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mitchell Borough constituency |
|
|---|---|
| Created: | 1547 |
| Abolished: | 1832 |
| Type: | House of Commons |
| Members: | two |
Mitchell, or St Michael (sometimes also called St Michael's Borough or Michaelborough) was a rotten borough consisting of the town (or village) of Mitchell, Cornwall. From the first Parliament of Edward VI, in 1547, it elected two members to the Unreformed House of Commons.
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[edit] History
The borough encompassed parts of two parishes, Newlyn and St Enodor. Like most of the Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the Tudor period, it was a rotten borough from the start.
The franchise in Mitchell was a matter of controversy in the 17th century, but was settled by a House of Commons resolution on 20 March 1700 which stated "That the right of election of members to serve in Parliament for the Borough of St Michael's, in the County of Cornwall, is in the portreeves, and lords of the manor, who are capable of being portreeves, and the inhabitants of the said borough paying scot and lot". This gave the vote to most of the male householders.
The borough was often not in the complete control of a single proprietor, the voters being swayed between those of the lords of the manor from whom they expected to receive most benefit in return. Namier quotes a memorandum on the state of the Cornish boroughs from Lord Edgcumbe to Prime Minister Newcastle in 1760, describing the Mitchell voters as "in general low, indigent people, [who] will join such of the Under Lords from whom they have reason to expect most money and favours. Admiral Boscawen..., by supplying some of the voters with money and conferring favours on others, seems to be adding very considerably to the strength of his interest."
The landowners, however, had other expedients for gaining control. The number of voters, which in 1784 had been at least 39, was reduced by 1831 to just seven, achieved by pulling down a number of houses in the borough and letting those houses that still stood on conditions which prevented the occupiers appearing on the parish rates. The proprietors by the 1820s were the Earl of Falmouth (a Boscawen) and Sir Christopher Hawkins, Hawkins having purchased his interest some years previously from Sir Francis Basset; but Mitchell having thus been reduced to one of the smallest of all the rotten boroughs (in 1831, the borough had a population of approximately 90, and 23 houses), it was naturally disfranchised by the Great Reform Act of 1832.
Mitchell's early MPs included the explorer and statesman Walter Raleigh, who sat briefly for the borough in the 1590s while out of favour at court and so unable to secure a more presitigious seat. A later MP was the future Duke of Wellington, who as Sir Arthur Wellesley represented the borough from January to May 1807, for part of which time he was a junior minister (Chief Secretary for Ireland) in the Duke of Portland's second government.
[edit] Members of Parliament
[edit] 1547-1660
- 1593: Sir Walter Raleigh
- 1601: George Chudleigh
- 1621-1622: Richard Carew
- 1640-1642: Robert Holborne (Royalist) - disabled to sit, August 1642
- 1640-1644: William Chadwell (Royalist) - disabled to sit, January 1644
- 1647-1648: Lord Kerr - excluded in Pride's Purge, December 1648
- 1645(?) Thomas Temple - apparently elected, but no evidence that he ever took his seat
Mitchell was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
- 1659: James Launce
- 1659: Richard Lobb
Long Parliament (restored)
- 1659-1660: Lord Kerr (?)
- 1659-1660: ?
[edit] 1660-1832
| Year | First member | First party | Second member | Second party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April 1660 | Thomas Carew | Heneage Finch[1] | ||||
| May 1660 | John Alleyn | |||||
| 1661 | Matthew Wren | Sir Edward Mosley | ||||
| 1665 | The Lord Hawley | |||||
| 1673 | Humphrey Borlase | |||||
| 1679 | Sir John St. Aubyn | Walter Vincent | ||||
| 1681 | Sir William Russell | Henry Vincent | ||||
| 1685 | Thomas Price | John Vyvyan | ||||
| January 1689 | The Viscount Fanshawe[2] | Tory | Francis Vyvyan | |||
| September 1689 | William Coryton | |||||
| December 1689 | Humphrey Courtney | |||||
| March 1690 | Anthony Rowe | Francis Scobell | ||||
| November 1690 | Humphrey Courtney | |||||
| 1695 | Thomas Vyvyan | |||||
| 1697 | John Tregagle | John Povey | ||||
| 1698 | Sir John Hawles | |||||
| January 1701 | William Beaw | Anthony Rowe | ||||
| March 1701 | Sir Richard Vyvyan | |||||
| December 1701 | William Courtney | |||||
| 1702 | Renatus Bellott | Francis Basset | ||||
| 1705 | Sir William Hodges | Hugh Fortescue | ||||
| 1710 | Abraham Blackmore | Richard Belasyse | ||||
| 1713 | Sir Henry Belasyse | John Statham | ||||
| 1715 | Nathaniel Blakiston | Robert Molesworth[3] | ||||
| 1722 | Charles Selwyn | John Hedges | ||||
| 1727 | Henry Kelsall | Thomas Farrington | ||||
| 1734 | Thomas Watts | Robert Ord | ||||
| 1741 | Edward Clive | John Ord | ||||
| May 1745 | Richard Lloyd | |||||
| November 1745 | Sir Edward Pickering | |||||
| 1747 | Thomas Clarke | Albert Nesbitt | ||||
| 1753 | Arnold Nesbitt | |||||
| 1754 | John Stephenson | Robert Clive | ||||
| 1755[4] | Simon Luttrell | Richard Hussey | ||||
| 1761 | John Stephenson | James Scawen[5] | ||||
| 1774 | Hon. Thomas Howard | |||||
| 1779 | Francis Hale | |||||
| 1780 | Hon. William Hanger | |||||
| 1784 | David Howell | Sir Christopher Hawkins [6] | Tory | |||
| 1796 | Sir Stephen Lushington | |||||
| 1799 | John Simpson | |||||
| 1802 | Robert Dallas | Robert Sharpe Ainslie | ||||
| 1805 | Earl of Dalkeith | |||||
| 1806 | Sir Christopher Hawkins[7] | Tory | Frederick William Trench | Tory | ||
| January 1807 | Hon. Sir Arthur Wellesley | Henry Conyngham Montgomery | ||||
| May 1807 | Edward Leveson-Gower | George Galway Mills | ||||
| July 1807 | Sir James Hall | |||||
| 1808 | Charles Trelawny-Brereton | |||||
| 1809 | John Bruce | |||||
| 1812 | George Robert Hobart | |||||
| 1813 | Hon. Edward Law | |||||
| August 1814 | Charles Trelawny-Brereton | |||||
| December 1814 | Lord Binning | Tory | ||||
| 1818 | Sir George Staunton | William Leake | ||||
| 1820 | William Taylor Money | |||||
| April 1826 | Henry Labouchere | Whig | ||||
| June 1826 | William Leake | Whig | ||||
| 1830 | Hon. Lloyd Kenyon | Tory | John Heywood Hawkins | Whig | ||
| 1831 | Hon. William Samuel Best | Tory | ||||
| 1832 | Constituency abolished | |||||
[edit] Notes
- ^ Finch was also elected for Canterbury, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Mitchell
- ^ Expelled from the House for refusing to take the oath of loyalty to William and Mary
- ^ Created Viscount Molesworth (in the Peerage of Ireland), July 1716
- ^ At the election of 1754, Clive and Stephenson were initially declared to have defeated their opponents Luttrell and Hussey, but the result was reversed on petition
- ^ Scawen was re-elected in 1774 but had also been elected for Surrey, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for Mitchell
- ^ At the election of 1784 there was double return, one naming Howell and Hawkins as elected, the other naming Howell and Roger Wilbraham, they having tied with 21 votes each. (Howell had 27 votes and the fourth candidate, William Boscawen, 15.) On scrutiny of the votes the Committee struck off four votes that had been credited to Wilbraham, and added one to Hawkins that had been disallowed by the Returning Officer, and declared Hawkins duly elected.
- ^ Hawkins was also elected for Grampound and Penryn; he chose to represent Grampound, and did not sit for Mitchell in this Parliament
[edit] References
- D Brunton & D H Pennington, “Members of the Long Parliament” (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
- Lewis Namier, "The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III" (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
- J E Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
- T H B Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
- 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
