St. Germans

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 householders resident for one year

Number of voters:

about 50 in 17151

Elections

DateCandidate
28 Jan. 1715JOHN KNIGHT
 WALLER BACON
3 May 1715PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, Lord Stanhope, vice Bacon, chose to sit for Norwich
10 Jan. 1719KNIGHT re-elected after appointment to office
10 Apr. 1722CHARLES HAMILTON, Lord Binning
 PHILIP CAVENDISH
23 Aug. 1727SIR GILBERT HEATHCOTE
 SIDNEY GODOLPHIN
29 Jan. 1733RICHARD ELIOT vice Godolphin, deceased
1 Mar. 1733DUDLEY RYDER vice Heathcote, deceased
28 Jan. 1734RYDER re-elected after appointment to office
3 May 1734CHARLES CALVERT, Baron Baltimore
 CHARLES MONTAGU
13 May 1741JOHN HYNDE COTTON
 JAMES NEWSHAM
2 July 1747RICHARD ELIOT
 THOMAS POTTER
12 Dec. 1748EDWARD ELIOT vice Richard Eliot, deceased
28 June 1751ELIOT re-elected after appointment to office

Main Article

St. Germans was the pocket borough of the Eliots of Port Eliot, who as lords of the manor appointed the returning officer, placing the seats not occupied by themselves first at the disposal of the Administration and from 1734 at that of the Prince of Wales. Thomas Pitt wrote in 1740: ‘the borough is at the disposal of Mr. Eliot, without opposition’,2 and the 2nd Lord Egmont, c.1749-50: ‘in Mr. Eliot’.

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Cox, Magna Britannia (1738 ed.), i. 347.
  • 2. Chatham mss.