Lymington

Borough

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

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the freemen

Number of voters:

about 40 (38 voted in 1729)

Elections

DateCandidate
31 Jan. 1715LORD WILLIAM POWLETT
 SIR JOSEPH JEKYLL
18 Apr. 1715RICHARD CHAUNDLER vice Powlett, chose to sit for Winchester
26 July 1717JEKYLL re-elected after appointment to office
24 Mar. 1722LORD HARRY POWLETT
 PAUL BURRARD
27 Oct. 1722SIR GILBERT HEATHCOTE vice Powlett, chose to sit for Hampshire
23 Aug. 1727LORD NASSAU POWLETT
 ANTHONY MORGAN
13 May 1729WILLIAM POWLETT vice Morgan, deceased
 George Stanley
25 Apr. 1734SIR JOHN COPE
 MAURICE BOCLAND
5 May 1741LORD NASSAU POWLETT
 HARRY BURRARD
31 Dec. 1741CHARLES POWLETT vice Lord Nassau Powlett, deceased
29 June 1747CHARLES POWLETT
 HARRY BURRARD

Main Article

The representation of Lymington was shared by the Powletts, dukes of Bolton, lords lieutenant of Hampshire, with the Burrards, a local family who managed the borough, packing the corporation so successfully that in 1722 Paul Burrard said ‘all the old burgesses now alive (except one) from the year 1686 to 1701, were made by us’. When in 1722 Lord William Powlett attempted to secure the second seat, Paul Burrard successfully objected, pointing out to him:

Your Lordship cannot imagine that I have lived so near the town all my life without expenses. Or, do you think it possible that you (coming for a few days, once a year) could singly support the interest, when there are so many adversaries round us who deal with the trading people?

In 1745 a further attempt by the 3rd Duke to obtain sole control of the borough was defeated by an alliance between the sitting Members, his nephew Colonel Charles Powlett and Harry Burrard, who secured a majority on the corporation by calling a surprise meeting and creating new freemen.1 After an unsuccessful appeal to the courts against the legality of these proceedings, the Duke of Bolton, in a last minute attempt to prevent the return of Powlett and Burrard in the 1747 election, wrote to the Duke of Newcastle’s secretary on 19 June:

If his Grace will send me any two names that he desires to be chose, either two servants of the King’s or any two that he shall name, I’ll recommend them to be chose. ... The greatest treachery is the occasion of this.2

He was informed that ‘things were so far settled and the time of the election so near that it was impracticable to make any alterations’.3 In Burrard’s words, he and Powlett

established our interest, which we kept up in mutual harmony, without again adding to the number of our burgesses, during Colonel Charles Powlett’s life. Nothing transpired in any matter relative to the borough till we had agreed between ourselves on the point. He left the management of everything to me, and never suffered anybody else to interfere with the business of the borough.4

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. S. Burrard, Annals of Walhampton, 26, 30-31, 55-80.
  • 2. Add. 32711, f. 413.
  • 3. Ibid. f. 415.
  • 4. Burrard, 78.