Dorset

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

about 2,400

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
2 Feb. 1715THOMAS STRANGWAYS 
 GEORGE CHAFFIN 
11 Apr. 1722THOMAS STRANGWAYS 
 GEORGE CHAFFIN 
25 Jan. 1727GEORGE PITT jun. vice Strangways, deceased1252
 Thomas Horner1062
6 Sept. 1727GEORGE CHAFFIN1512
 EDMUND MORTON PLEYDELL1467
 Richard Broadnep1082
8 May 1734GEORGE CHAFFIN 
 EDMUND MORTON PLEYDELL 
27 May 1741GEORGE CHAFFIN 
 EDMUND MORTON PLEYDELL 
15 July 1747GEORGE CHAFFIN 
 GEORGE PITT 

Main Article

Tories were returned for Dorset without opposition except in 1727, when George Pitt, an ex-Tory, defeated one of his former party at a by-election, only to change sides again before the ensuing general election, when he gave his interest to the Tory candidates,1 who were returned after a contest. The 2nd Lord Egmont wrote of Dorset in his electoral survey, c. 1749-50: ‘Hitherto in the hands of the Tories, but if the Whigs should reunite they would be beaten. The present Members should not be the men.’

Author: R. S. Lea

Notes

  • 1. Rich. Edgcumbe to Sir R. Walpole, undated, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss 3240.