Boston

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 the resident freemen paying scot and lot

Number of voters:

about 250

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
1 Feb. 1715HENRY HERON 
 RICHARD WYNN 
7 Dec. 1719RICHARD ELLYS vice Wynn, deceased81
 Sir William Massingberd60
24 Mar. 1722RICHARD ELLYS122
 HENRY PACEY102
 William Thornton81
 Charles Wood50
18 Aug. 1727RICHARD ELLYS 
 HENRY PACEY 
22 Jan. 1730HENRY HARE, Baron Coleraine, vice Pacey, deceased71
 Charles Wood46
 Bennet Longton17
 William Marten13
27 Apr. 1734ALBEMARLE BERTIE 
 RICHARD FYDELL 
5 May 1741LORD VERE BERTIE 
 JOHN MICHELL 
27 June 1747JOHN MICHELL165
 LORD VERE BERTIE114
 Francis Beckford106

Main Article

At George I’s accession the chief interests at Boston were in the 1st Duke of Ancaster, recorder of the borough,1 and the Tory dominated corporation. Under the Tory ministry at the end of Anne’s reign the corporation had been able to return two Tories, Richard Wynn and Henry Heron, who were re-elected in 1715 unopposed. After the by-election caused by Wynn’s death in 1719 Richard Ellys, a Whig, defeated Wynn’s nephew, Sir William Massingberd, a Tory, on whose petition the House of Commons resolved that the only freemen entitled to vote were those claiming their freedom ‘by birth or servitude’.2 The effect of this decision was to prevent the corporation from carrying out their intention of creating sufficient new freemen to regain control of the second seat, which was held by Ellys till 1734 and thereafter by the 2nd Duke of Ancaster’s nominees. The other seat was filled by Tories brought in by the corporation.

Author: Paula Watson

Notes

  • 1. P. Thompson, Hist. Boston, 458.
  • 2. CJ, xix. 290.