Callington

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 householders resident for 12 months

Number of voters:

about 100

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
29 Jan. 1715SIR JOHN CORYTON 
 SAMUEL ROLLE 
4 Dec. 17191THOMAS COPLESTON vice Rolle, deceased22
 Francis Manaton16
12 Apr. 1722THOMAS COPLESTON 
 THOMAS LUTWYCHE 
 Darrell Trelawny 
 George Harrison 
25 Aug. 1727SIR JOHN CORYTON 
 THOMAS COPLESTON 
29 Apr. 1734THOMAS COPLESTON 
 ISAAC LE HEUP 
14 May 1741HORATIO WALPOLE44
 THOMAS COPLESTON44
 — Mitford23
 — Bennet21
3 July 1747HORATIO WALPOLE71
 THOMAS COPLESTON57
 Warwick Calmady31
 Thomas Potter15
21 Apr. 1748EDWARD BACON vice Copleston, deceased 

Main Article

The chief interests at Callington in 1715 were in two Tories: Samuel Rolle, who as lord of the manor appointed the returning officer, and Sir John Coryton, who had much property in the borough and resided in the neighbouring parish. On the death of Rolle in 1719, Thomas Copleston, a Whig who was a trustee of the Rolle estate, was returned against a Tory. In 1724 Samuel Rolle’s heiress, Margaret, married Walpole’s eldest son Robert, later 2nd Earl of Orford, and in 1734, according to a well-informed account of the borough drawn up in 1772, ‘Sir John Coryton came over to the interest of the Walpole family by means of a place Sir Robert Walpole gave to the late Mr. Tillie, who paid one moiety of it to Sir John Coryton’.2 In 1741 Hugh Boscawen, 2nd Lord Falmouth, then in opposition, wrote:

At Callington our friends have the majority but will not have the return in their favour, the mayor being one that will in all probability act as Lord Walpole shall direct.3

The Walpoles retained control of both seats in 1741 and 1747, despite opposition supported by the Prince of Wales’s party.4

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Som. RO, DD/WH 1151, no. 51.
  • 2. ‘State of the Borough of Callington, 3 Mar. 1772’, Glubb mss at R. Inst. Cornwall. The appointment of James Tillie as ‘Superintendent of the Royal Foundry’ is announced in Gent. Mag. 1734, p. 275.
  • 3. 12 May 1741, to Frederick, Prince of Wales, Royal archives.
  • 4. HMC Fortescue, 108, 111.