Stockbridge was a parliamentary borough

Parliamentary borough

Parliamentary boroughs are a type of administrative division, usually covering urban areas, that are entitled to representation in a Parliament...

 in Hampshire

Hampshire

Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...

, which elected two Members of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MPs) to the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 from 1563 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act. It was one of the more egregiously rotten borough

Rotten borough

A "rotten", "decayed" or pocket borough was a parliamentary borough or constituency in the United Kingdom that had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within Parliament....

s, and the first to have its status threatened for its corruption by a parliamentary bill to disfranchise it, though the proposal was defeated.

Early years

The borough was first enfranchised during the reign of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...

, and consisted of the town of Stockbridge

Stockbridge, Hampshire

Stockbridge is a small town and civil parish in Hampshire, England. It has an acreage of and a population of little under 600 people according to the 2001 census in Hampshire, England. It lies on the River Test, in the Test Valley district and renowned for trout fishing. The A30 road goes through...

, a small Hampshire market town on the Great West Road

A30 road

The 284 miles A30 road from London to Land's End, historically known as the Great South West Road used to provide the most direct route from London to the south west; more recently the M3 motorway and A303 road performs this function for much of the route and only parts of A30 now retain trunk...

 that cannot have been a town of any real size or importance even at the outset. Although in Hampshire, in Tudor times the borough came within the jurisdiction of the Duchy of Lancaster

Duchy of Lancaster

The Duchy of Lancaster is one of the two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Cornwall. It is held in trust for the Sovereign, and is used to provide income for the use of the British monarch...

, and it is possible that it won its right to vote on the assumption that it would allow the Duchy to nominate its members. However - and unlike most boroughs within the Duchy's sphere at that period - the historian John Neale found little evidence that most of early representatives were Duchy nominees: most were Hampshire men, and it may be that the influence of the local gentry was too strong. Nevertheless, towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign Stockbridge returned several MPs who were probably the choices of the Chancellor of the Duchy.

The election of 1614

The system came to grief, however, at the election of 1614, causing a controversy that has been regarded as a significant milestone in the House Of Commons' assertion of its privileges

Parliamentary privilege

Parliamentary privilege is a legal immunity enjoyed by members of certain legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made related to one's duties as a legislator. It is common in countries whose constitutions are...

. In that year, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is, in modern times, a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom that includes as part of its duties, the administration of the estates and rents of the Duchy of Lancaster...

, Sir Thomas Parry

Thomas Parry (ambassador)

Sir Thomas Parry was an English politician and diplomat during the Tudor period.Thomas Parry was the son of Sir Thomas Parry Senior of Welford Park in Berkshire, the Controller of the Royal Household, by his wife, Anne, the daughter of Sir William Reade of Boarstall in Buckinghamshire.He first...

, sent a threatening letter to the borough claiming the right by precedent to choose the two MPs, and nominating Sir Henry Wallop and Sir Walter Cope

Walter Cope

Sir Walter Cope was an English government official of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.-Life:Cope was probably born at Hardwick Manor near Banbury, Oxfordshire, third son of Edward Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire and his wife Elizabeth Mohun, daughter of Walter Mohun of Overstone,...

 as his choices. But the intrepid 28 electors of Stockbridge ignored his wishes, voting almost unanimously for their own candidates, Sir Richard Gifford and a Mr St John. But the bailiff of the borough (who was ex-officio returning officer

Returning Officer

In various parliamentary systems, a returning officer is responsible for overseeing elections in one or more constituencies.-Australia:In Australia a returning officer is an employee of the Australian Electoral Commission or a State Electoral Commission who heads the local divisional office...

) ignored the vote and returned the names of Wallop and Cope as elected; furthermore, the angry Parry, furious to have been defied, had one of the voters arrested and imprisoned.

The electors now petitioned against this outcome, and the House of Commons proved strong enough to protect its elections from interference. Although there was considerable discussion as to the legal precedents, they eventually resolved that the election of Wallop and Gifford was void. Furthermore, they expelled Parry from his own seat for subverting the election in another constituency, and prevailed upon the King

James I of England

James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...

 to suspend him from his office and from the Privy Council

Privy Council of the United Kingdom

Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...

.

17th century attempts to disfranchise Stockbridge for corruption

It is not recorded whether the stand of the Stockbridge electors was based on principle or had some less worthy motive, but their successors were certainly more venal. At least from the late 17th century, the right to vote in Stockbridge was exercised by all inhabitant householders who paid scot and lot

Scot and lot

Scot and lot is a phrase common in the records of English medieval boroughs, applied to householders who were assessed for a tax paid to the borough for local or national purposes.They were usually members of a merchant guild.Before the Reform Act 1832, those who paid scot and bore...

, which generally amounted to about 100 voters. Bribery was routine, and led to frequent scandal. In 1689 and again in 1693, the election in the borough was declared void. After the 1689 election was overturned by the Commons for "gross and notorious bribery", its original victor debarred from being re-elected for the constituency in that Parliament, and the bailiff and three other inhabitants of the town were thrown in jail. Then an unprecedented motion was put to disfranchise Stockbridge, and transfer its two seats to the county, but the other MPs - perhaps nervous as to their own position - proved unenthusiastic. After debate the proposal was quietly dropped.

In 1693, very unusually, the House went against the findings of its own election committee, declaring the election corrupt and void even though the committee had decided that the winner had been duly elected. Instead of issuing a writ for a new election, the House then considered a bill to disfranchise Stockbridge; this time the bill made considerable progress, but it was eventually defeated on the third reading and a by-election was held to fill the vacancy.

Not all the bribery in Stockbridge was as direct as buying votes or corrupting the bailiff. Thomas Oldfield, the 19th century historian of and polemicist against electoral abuse, records the following anecdote of the author Richard Steele

Richard Steele

Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....

, elected in 1713:

The ingenious Sir Richard Steele ... carried his election against a powerful opposition, by the merry expedient of sticking a large apple full of guineas, and declaring it should be the prize of that man whose wife should first be brought to-bed [i.e. have a baby] after that day nine months. This, we are told, procured him the interest of the women, who are said to commemorate Sir Richard's bounty to this day, and once made a strenuous effort to procure a resolution, that no man should ever be received as a candidate who did not offer himself upon the same terms.

Patronage in the 18th and 19th centuries

Yet despite the apparent need to secure every result by bribery, Stockbridge continued to have a generally-recognised "patron", without whose support it was considered difficult if not impossible to be elected, and despite the precarious hold that this patronage entailed, it was as much a commercial property as the ownership of pocket boroughs where control of the elections was absolute. In 1754, the patron was the attorney-general, Robert Henley

Robert Henley, 1st Earl of Northington

Robert Henley, 1st Earl of Northington PC , was the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain. He was a member of the Whig Party in the parliament and was known for his wit and writing.-Family:...

, who had personal rather than government-backed influence over the borough. He passed control to his colleague Henry Fox

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland

Henry Fox, 1st Baron Holland, of Foxley, MP, PC was a leading British politician of the 18th century. He identified primarily with the Whig faction...

 by leasing the rights for a term of years. Fox hoped to reduce the venality of the voters but quickly saw a deterioration rather than an improvement, and must have considered his payment to have been a poor investment. Namier and Brooke quote correspondence to show that in 1767 Fox's son, the Whig leader Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox PC , styled The Honourable from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned thirty-eight years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries and who was particularly noted for being the arch-rival of William Pitt the Younger...

, was admitting that while they felt certain of securing one seat for their chosen candidate at the following year's election they saw little likelihood of being able to choose both MPs: the 96 voters had already been bribed in advance to the extent of 50 guineas a man, and if the election was carried to a contest the need for further treating

Treating

Treating, in law, is the act of serving food, drink, and other refreshments as a method of influencing people for political gain. In various countries, treating is considered a form of corruption, and is illegal as such....

 of the voters and payments to the returning officer would bring the cost to a candidate into the region of £2,500. (In the event this election was not contested, presumably because the votes bought in advance had already made it a foregone conclusion; but there were contests at each of the next four opportunities.)

By 1774 the younger Fox was in need of money and no longer able to afford the expense of maintaining control of Stockbridge's elections. Yet it seems that he was able to sell his interests there to the Luttrell family, a transaction that can in reality have entailed little more than a guarantee not to oppose the Luttrell candidates and so bid up the price of votes: lavish bribery by the Luttrells was still necessary to secure their seats. When the Luttrells tired of it, the borough passed into the hands of a West Indies merchant, Joseph Foster Barham, who occupied one seat himself and later kept the second for his step-grandson, John Foster Barham. But when he, too, found himself in monetary difficulties, he sold the borough to Earl Grosvenor

Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster

Robert Grosvenor, 1st Marquess of Westminster, KG was the son of the 1st Earl Grosvenor, whom he succeeded in 1802 as 2nd Earl Grosvenor. He was created Marquess of Westminster in 1831. He was an English Member of Parliament and an ancestor of the modern day Dukes of Westminster...

. He not only vacated his seat immediately to allow Grosvenor's nominee (Edward Stanley

Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby

Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party. He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley...

, a future Conservative

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

 Prime Minister but then a Whig) to be elected, but took the trouble to introduce Stanley to the electors. By the time of the Reform Act, Grosvenor was being accused of having countered the prevalence of bribery by a different form of corruption, having hostile voters disqualified by persuading the local overseers of the poor (his appointees) not to rate them for scot and lot, and creating new votes by finding nominal jobs for "unemployables" with the surveyor of roads.

Abolition

By the 19th century, Stockbridge was no more than a village, and had no case for survival as a constituency even had its elections been impeccably pure. In 1831, the population of the borough was 663, and contained 188 houses. It was abolished as a separate constituency by the Great Reform Act in 1832, being included within the Northern Division

North Hampshire (UK Parliament constituency)

- Notes and references :...

 of the county thereafter.

MPs 1563–1640

Parliament	First member	Second member
1563	Walter Sandys	William St John
1571	William St John	Tristram Pistor
1572	Henry Gifford	Tristram Pistor
1584	George Kingsmill	Hampden Paulet
1586	George Kingsmill	John Fisher
1588	Chidiock Wardour	Henry St John
1593	John Awdeley John Awdeley John Awdeley was an English politician. In 1593, he was the Member of Parliament for Lancaster.-References:...	Henry St John
1597	Miles Sandys Miles Sandys Miles Sandys was an English courtier and Member of Parliament who sat in every Parliament from 1563 to 1597 yet never represented the same constituency twice. Sandys was the brother of the Archbishop of York, Edwin Sandys, and an influential crown official, working in the Court of Queen's Bench and...	Mark Steward
1601	Edward Savage	Thomas Grymes
1604-1611	Sir William Fortescue William Fortescue Sir William Fortescue, KC, PC was a British judge. He was the son of Henry Fortescue and his wife Agnes, and a descendant of the noted lawyer John Fortescue. Fortescue was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and matriculated to Trinity College, Oxford in 1705...	Sir Edwin Sandys Edwin Sandys (American colonist) Sir Edwin Sandys was an English politician, a leading figure in the parliaments of James I of England. He was also one of the founders of the proprietary Virginia Company of London, which in 1607 established the first permanent English settlement in what is now the United States in the colony of...
1614	Sir Henry Wallop	Sir Walter Cope Walter Cope Sir Walter Cope was an English government official of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.-Life:Cope was probably born at Hardwick Manor near Banbury, Oxfordshire, third son of Edward Cope of Hanwell, Oxfordshire and his wife Elizabeth Mohun, daughter of Walter Mohun of Overstone,...   (Election voided)
1621-1622	Sir Henry Wallop	Sir William Ayloffe, 1st Baronet Sir William Ayloffe, 1st Baronet Sir William Ayloffe of Braxtead Magna, in Essex, was knighted by James I in 1603, created a baronet in 1612 and sat as a member of parliament for Stockbridge from 1621 to 1622.-Biography:...
1624	Sir Richard Gifford	Sir Henry Holcroft
1625	Sir Richard Gifford	Sir Thomas Badger Thomas Badger Thomas Badger was an artist in Boston, Massachusetts in the 19th-century. He specialized in portraits.-Biography:Thomas Badger trained with John Ritto Penniman.Portrait subjects included:* John Abbot* William Allen, of Bowdoin College...
1626	Sir Richard Gifford	Sir Thomas Badger Thomas Badger Thomas Badger was an artist in Boston, Massachusetts in the 19th-century. He specialized in portraits.-Biography:Thomas Badger trained with John Ritto Penniman.Portrait subjects included:* John Abbot* William Allen, of Bowdoin College...
1628	Sir Richard Gifford	Sir Henry Whitehead Henry Whitehead (MP) Sir Henry Whitehead was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1625 to 1629.Whitehead was the son of Richard Whitehead. He inherited the estates of Norman Court and Shirley Hampshire in 1593. In 1609 he was High Sheriff of Hampshire.In 1625, Whitehead was elected Member of...
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned

MPs 1640–1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
April 1640 Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640 during the reign of King Charles I of England, so called because it lasted only three weeks....		William Heveningham William Heveningham William Heveningham was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War and was one of the Regicides of Charles I of England....	Parliamentarian		William Jephson	Parliamentarian
November 1640 Long Parliament The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
December 1648				Jephson not recorded as sitting after Pride's Purge Pride's Purge Pride’s Purge is an event in December 1648, during the Second English Civil War, when troops under the command of Colonel Thomas Pride forcibly removed from the Long Parliament all those who were not supporters of the Grandees in the New Model Army and the Independents...
1653	Stockbridge was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament Barebones Parliament Barebone's Parliament, also known as the Little Parliament, the Nominated Assembly and the Parliament of Saints, came into being on 4 July 1653, and was the last attempt of the English Commonwealth to find a stable political form before the installation of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector...  and the First First Protectorate Parliament The First Protectorate Parliament was summoned by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the terms of the Instrument of Government. It sat for one term from 3 September 1654 until 22 January 1655 with William Lenthall as the Speaker of the House....  and Second Second Protectorate Parliament The Second Protectorate Parliament in England sat for two sessions from 17 September 1656 until 4 February 1658, with Thomas Widdrington as the Speaker of the House of Commons...  Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659 Third Protectorate Parliament The Third Protectorate Parliament sat for one session, from 27 January 1659 until 22 April 1659, with Chaloner Chute and Thomas Bampfylde as the Speakers of the House of Commons...		Francis Rivett Francis Rivett Francis Rivett was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1660.Rivett was probably admitted at Emmanuel College, Cambridge on 29 May 1612 and awarded BA in 1616...			Richard Whitehead Richard Whitehead (Hampshire MP) Richard Whitehead was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He fought for the Parliamentary army in the English Civil War....
May 1659 Rump Parliament The Rump Parliament is the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament on 6 December 1648 of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason....	Not represented in the restored Rump Rump Parliament The Rump Parliament is the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament on 6 December 1648 of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason....
April 1660		Francis Rivett Francis Rivett Francis Rivett was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1654 and 1660.Rivett was probably admitted at Emmanuel College, Cambridge on 29 May 1612 and awarded BA in 1616...			Sir John Evelyn John Evelyn (Parliamentarian) Sir John Evelyn was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1626 and 1660.Evelyn was the son of George Evelyn of West Dean, a clerk in Chancery, and his wife Elizabeth Rivers, daughter of Sir John Rivers of Chafford, Kent...
1661		Sir Robert Howard Robert Howard (playwright) Sir Robert Howard was an English playwright and politician, born to Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Berkshire and his wife Elizabeth.-Life:...			Robert Phelips Robert Phelips Sir Robert Phelips was an English politician. He was the son of Sir Edward Phelips, Speaker of the House of Commons and Master of the Rolls...
February 1679		Henry Whithed			Oliver St John
August 1679		William Strode
1680		Henry Whithed
1681		Essex Strode
1685					John Head
January 1689		Richard Whithed			Oliver St John
September 1689					William Montagu
December 1689					Thomas Neale Thomas Neale Thomas Neale was a British project-manager and politician who was also well-known in the United States as the first person to hold a position equivalent to postmaster-general of the North American colonies....
1690					William Montagu
1691					Thomas Jervoise
November 1693		Anthony Rowe
December 1693	Seat vacant
November 1694		George Pitt
1695		Anthony Sturt			John Venables
1698					George Pitt
1699					John Pitt
1701		Frederick Tylney			Anthony Burnaby
1702		Henry Killigrew Henry Killigrew (Royal Navy officer) Vice Admiral Henry Killigrew was an English Royal Navy officer. He was the son of the playwright Henry Killigrew. He was active in the 1670s and 1680s, and was promoted to vice-admiral in 1689. He was suspected of Jacobite sympathies, and not given a sea command after 1693...
1705		Sir John Hawles John Hawles -Life:The second son of Thomas Hawles of Moanton in Wiltshire, by Elizabeth Antrobus of Hampshire, was born in the Close at Salisbury. His father, whose name is sometimes spelled Hollis, belonged to the family of Hawles of Upwimborne, Dorset...			Sir Edward Laurence
1710		George Dashwood			The Earl of Barrymore
1713		Thomas Brodrick			Richard Steele Richard Steele Sir Richard Steele was an Irish writer and politician, remembered as co-founder, with his friend Joseph Addison, of the magazine The Spectator....	Whig
1714					The Earl of Barrymore
1715					Martin Bladen
1722		John Chetwynd John Chetwynd, 2nd Viscount Chetwynd John Chetwynd, 2nd Viscount Chetwynd , diplomat and politician, was the second son of John Chetwynd and the brother of Walter Chetwynd, 1st Viscount Chetwynd. He succeeded to that Irish peerage in 1736 by virtue of a special remainder....
1734		Sir Humphrey Monoux			John Montagu
1735					John Berkeley John Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley of Stratton John Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley of Stratton PC , styled The Honourable John Berkeley until 1741, was a British politician.-Background and education:...
1741		Charles Churchill Charles Churchill (of Chalfont) Charles Churchill was the only son of Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill by the actress Anne Oldfield. His grandfather, also Charles Churchill, was a British army officer and brother of the 1st Duke of Marlborough....			Matthew Lamb Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet Sir Matthew Lamb, 1st Baronet was a British barrister and politician. He was the grandfather of Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne....
1747		Daniel Boone			William Chetwynd
1754		John Gibbons			Dr George Hay George Hay (politician) Sir George Hay was a British judge and Member of Parliament . He was Dean of Arches 1764–1778.In 1754, he was returned as one of the two MPs for Stockbridge, but left the House of Commons in 1756 to take up the post of Commissioner of the Admiralty...
1756					The Viscount Powerscourt
1761		George Prescott			Nicholas Linwood
1768		Major-General Richard Alchorne Worge			Richard Fuller
1772		James Hare
1774		Captain the Hon. John Luttrell			The Lord Irnham Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton Simon Luttrell, 1st Earl of Carhampton was a British politician and Irish nobleman.He was the second son of Col. Henry Luttrell, of Luttrellstown...
1775		Lieutenant the Hon. James Luttrell
1780					Captain the Hon. John Luttrell
1784		Thomas Boothby Parkyns
1785					James Gordon
1790		John Cator John Cator John Cator was a wealthy timber merchant and landowner responsible for the layout of much of the areas around Blackheath and Beckenham, both in London — and both of which were in the county of Kent during the late 18th century.The son of a Herefordshire timber merchant and Quaker, Cator...			John Scott
1793		Joseph Foster Barham	Whig		George Porter	Whig
1799		John Agnew
1802		Joseph Foster Barham	Whig
January 1807		Sir John Leicester, Bt
May 1807		Joseph Foster Barham	Whig
1820					John Foster Barham	Whig
1822		Edward Stanley Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby Edward George Geoffrey Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby, KG, PC was an English statesman, three times Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and to date the longest serving leader of the Conservative Party. He was known before 1834 as Edward Stanley, and from 1834 to 1851 as Lord Stanley...	Whig
1826		Thomas Grosvenor Thomas Grosvenor (British Army officer) Field Marshal Thomas Grosvenor was a senior officer in the British Army.-Military career:Born the third son of Thomas Grosvenor MP, Grosvenor was educated at Westminster School and commissioned into the 1st foot guards in 1779. He was in charge of security at the Bank of England during the Gordon...	Whig		George Wilbraham	Whig
1830		William Sloane-Stanley	Tory
1831		John Foster-Barham	Whig		Sir Stratford Canning Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe Stratford Canning, 1st Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe KG GCB PC , was a British diplomat and politician, best known as the longtime British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire...	Whig
1832 United Kingdom general election, 1832 -Seats summary:-Parties and leaders at the general election:The Earl Grey had been Prime Minister since 22 November 1830. His was the first predominantly Whig administration since the Ministry of all the Talents in 1806-1807....	Constituency abolished

Notes

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