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Nottingham
Double Member Borough
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Background Information
Right of Election:
in the freemen and freeholders
Number of voters:
about 2,000
Elections
Date | Candidate | Votes |
---|---|---|
18 Apr. 1754 | George Augustus Howe, Visct. Howe | 980 |
Sir Willoughby Aston | 924 | |
John Plumptre | 915 | |
1 Dec. 1758 | William Howe vice Visct. Howe, deceased | |
26 Mar. 1761 | William Howe | |
John Plumptre | ||
16 Mar. 1768 | William Howe | |
John Plumptre | ||
11 Oct. 1774 | Sir Charles Sedley | 1114 |
William Howe | 971 | |
Lord Charles Edward Bentinck | 911 | |
9 Oct. 1778 | Abel Smith vice Sedley, deceased | |
9 Feb. 1779 | Robert Smith vice Abel Smith, deceased | |
8 Sept. 1780 | Robert Smith | 569 |
Daniel Parker Coke | 342 | |
John Cartwright | 149 | |
31 Mar. 1784 | Robert Smith | |
Daniel Parker Coke |
Main Article
Local landowners had a good deal of influence in Nottingham, particularly the Duke of Newcastle, leader of the Whigs, and Lord Middleton, leader of the Tories. The Dissenters were strong in the town, and in the second half of the eighteenth century controlled the corporation (to whose support the Howes owed their influence). Abel Smith, the leading local banker, had a strong interest, based on his ability to grant credit to the small manufacturers who formed a fair proportion of the voters. Elections at Nottingham were a resultant of these various forces, and their outcome could rarely be predicted.
In 1727 Newcastle and Middleton had reached a compromise by which one seat should be held by a Whig and the other by a Tory. But the electoral interests in the borough were too complex to be resolved by such a simple formula. In 1754, when Newcastle and the corporation were agreed in support of Lord Howe as the Whig candidate, they were opposed by John Plumptre, another Whig. In 1758, on Howe’s death, the corporation chose as his successor his younger brother William, without consulting Newcastle and against his wishes.1
There was no contest in 1761 or 1768, and at first it seemed there would be none in 1774. Lord Edward Bentinck and William Howe were supported by the corporation, Lord Middleton, Plumptre, and Abel Smith. But a body of electors, ‘of the old Tory stamp’, ‘displeased and dissatisfied that they had never been consulted’, put up Sir Charles Sedley and carried his election.2
On 21 Dec. 1777 Thomas Rawson, an agent of Lord Sandwich, wrote to him about Nottingham:3
This town is without any exception the most disloyal in the kingdom, owing in a great measure to the whole corporation (the present mayor excepted) being Dissenters, and of so bitter a sort that they have done and continue to do all in their power to hinder the service by preventing as much as possible the enlistment of soldiers.
Sir William Howe, by his conduct in America, lost the corporation’s support; and in 1780 they selected Daniel Parker Coke. The second seat went to Robert Smith, whose family had now the strongest interest in the borough. John Cartwright stood on a programme of parliamentary reform, but was heavily defeated.4
In 1784 the corporation and the Smith family divided the borough without a contest.