At George I’s accession the chief interest at Newcastle-under-Lyme was in Lord Gower, the head of the Staffordshire Tories, who owned a large part of the town, where one seat was usually held by a member of his family. Except in 1715, when two Whigs were returned on petition, and in 1722 and 1734, when one of the seats was held by Whigs, all the Members were Tories till 1744 when Lord Gower went over to the Administration. In 1747 it was ‘confidently reported that Sir Watkin Williams Wynn and his friends will attack him at Newcastle, and that a subscription is raised among the Jacobites for that purpose’,1 but in the end two Whigs, one of them Lord Gower’s son, were returned without opposition.