Sussex was the Duke of Newcastle’s county, and on it he lavished particular care and attention—his private fortune and, when in office, the favours of the Crown. Perpetually anxious and frightened of opposition, he liked to surround himself with his supporters; and his public days at his seats at Halland and Bishopstone were the provincial equivalents of his levees. There he entertained ‘a great company of people, of all denominations, from a duke to a beggar’,1 and showed himself as the acknowledged leader of his county.

During the Duke’s lifetime one Member was always a Pelham and the other usually a country gentleman friendly to the Pelhams. There was also a custom that one Member should be from east Sussex and the other from west. Newcastle was exceedingly jealous of the Duke of Richmond, the leading peer in the west, but Richmond lacked Newcastle’s experience and prestige and never commanded his influence. Neither did Thomas Pelham, who succeeded to Newcastle’s estates in Sussex, although his eldest son was returned for the county at the first general election after he had come of age.

The only contested election of this period, that of 1774, was between two country gentlemen—both sides agreed to give one vote to Lord George Lennox. Richmond was therefore neutral, and according to a note in the papers of Sir Thomas Wilson2 so was Pelham. But John Baker Holroyd, who himself had considered standing, wrote on 25 Nov. 1774 to congratulate Wilson on having freed the county from ‘lordly nominations’. It is not clear from Pelham’s papers whether or not he supported Peachey.