Taunton

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 inhabitant householders

Number of voters:

about 700-1,000

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
2 Feb. 1715SIR FRANCIS WARRE637
 HENRY PORTMAN635
 William Pynsent381
 James Smith381
 PYNSENT and SMITH vice Warre, and Portman, on petition, 30 Aug. 1715 
21 Mar. 1722JAMES SMITH432
 JOHN TRENCHARD432
 George Deane295
 Goodenough Earle289
18 Jan. 1724ABRAHAM ELTON vice Trenchard deceased 
 George Deane 
 William Molyneux 
 Griffith Pugh 
19 Aug. 1727GEORGE SPEKE 
 FRANCIS FANE 
26 Apr. 1734FRANCIS FANE 
 HENRY WILLIAM BERKELEY PORTMAN 
13 May 1741SIR JOHN CHAPMAN414
 JOHN BUCK409
 Francis Fane313
 Joshua Iremonger306
16 Apr. 1745PERCY WYNDHAM O'BRIEN vice Buck, deceased 
29 June 1747SIR CHARLES WYNDHAM 
 ROBERT WEBB 
27 Feb. 1750WILLIAM ROWLEY vice Wyndham, called to the Upper House 
24 June 1751ROWLEY re-elected after appointment to office 

Main Article

In 1715 two Tories were re-elected against two Whigs after a violent contest.1 Petitions alleging partiality by the mayor as returning officer in accepting unqualified Tory votes were heard on eleven days at the bar of the House, who awarded the seats to the Whig candidates, rejecting a motion, presumably in the interests of the sitting Members, that

persons living in that part of the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, in the town of Taunton, which lies out of the limits of the borough of Taunton, who, at any time before the issuing writs for calling a new Parliament, take a room, and boil a pot, within the said borough, do thereby acquire a right of voting in the election of Members to serve in Parliament for the said borough.2

In 1722, when two Whigs were returned after a contest, the number of voters fell by about 300. Both seats were held by Whigs till 1734, when there was a compromise between Francis Fane, one of the sitting Members, and Berkeley Portman, a Tory. In 1741 the ministerial candidates were defeated by Sir John Chapman, an opposition Whig, and John Buck, a Tory. On Buck’s death in 1745 he was succeeded by one of the Wyndhams, who as a family had all gone over to the Government. Sir Charles Wyndham and Robert Webb, a candidate of the dissenting interest, were returned jointly unopposed as government supporters in 1747. On Wyndham’s succeeding as 2nd Earl of Egremont in 1750, he was able to nominate his friend, Admiral Rowley, for the vacancy, without opposition.

Author: Shirley Matthews

Notes

  • 1. J. Toulmin, Taunton, 315.
  • 2. CJ, xvii. 31, 273, 289-90.