Lincolnshire

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 5,000

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
7 Feb. 1715SIR JOHN BROWNLOW 
 SIR WILLOUGHBY HICKMAN 
3 Jan. 1721SIR WILLIAM MASSINGBERD vice Hickman, deceased2603
 Albemarle Bertie1683
11 Apr. 1722SIR WILLIAM MASSINGBERD 
 HENRY HERON 
12 Feb. 1724ROBERT VYNER vice Massingberd, deceased2584
 Sir Neville Hickman2486
23 Aug. 1727SIR THOMAS LUMLEY SAUNDERSON 
 ROBERT VYNER 
24 Apr. 1734SIR THOMAS LUMLEY SAUNDERSON 
 ROBERT VYNER 
20 Feb. 1740THOMAS WHICHCOT vice Saunderson, called to the Upper House 
13 May 1741ROBERT VYNER 
 THOMAS WHICHCOT 
1 July 1747ROBERT VYNER 
 THOMAS WHICHCOT 

Main Article

The leading family in Lincolnshire was the Berties, lord lieutenants of the county, created dukes of Ancaster on George I’s accession. In 1715 the county returned one Whig, Sir John Brownlow, connected by marriage with the Duke of Ancaster, and one Tory, Sir Willoughby Hickman, without a contest. On Hickman’s death in 1720 the Duke’s brother, Albemarle Bertie, was put up against a Tory, Sir William Massingberd, who wrote a fortnight before polling day:

A regular method of bringing people together is what I should be glad to have fixed upon, for as they [the Whigs] manage the matter and are open in their entertainments and bribe five guineas apiece, we can’t afford to lose anything lest the cause perish with the candidate. I have writ to all the clergymen between this place and Boston to acquaint them when the election begins and to desire them to be active in the getting their parishioners together and mounting such as are unprovided of horses.1

At a meeting in Grantham called by the 3rd Earl of Cardigan, the Tory gentry agreed to bear the cost of bringing voters to the poll, Cardigan himself ‘undertaking a handsome share’.2 Massingberd was returned by a large majority. In 1722 he and another Tory, Henry Heron, were unopposed.

On Massingberd’s death in December 1723 Robert Vyner, an independent Whig, stood against the Tory candidate, Sir Neville Hickman, the former Member’s son. Shortly before the election the 2nd Duke of Ancaster was appointed lord lieutenant in succession to his father, with orders ‘to go down and bring in Mr. Vyner’.3 During the campaign a reputed friend of Hickman’s swore an affidavit that ‘Sir Neville Hickman did in my presence ... drink the late Duke of Ormonde’s health ... and after that proposed to drink the Pretender’s health by the name of James the Third’.4 The Tories circulated a denial but Vyner was returned by a small majority, on which a local Whig declared: ‘It is not in the power of the Tories to choose another Member for our county’.5 Throughout the next reign Lincolnshire was represented by Vyner and other independent Whigs without a contest.

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. 20 Dec. 1720, Massingberd Mundy deposit 2/10/7, Lincs. Archives Office.
  • 2. 31 Dec. 1720, ibid. 2/10/9.
  • 3. 8 Feb. 1724, ibid. 11/1/65.
  • 4. 3 Feb. 1724, Spalding Gentlemen’s Soc. mss.
  • 5. J. Waller to Mrs. Whichcot, 15 Feb. 1724, Aswarby mss 10/27/13, Lincs. Archives Office.