Canterbury

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 freemen

Number of voters:

about 1,300

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
3 Feb. 1715SIR THOMAS HALES 
 JOHN HARDRES 
 Sir Francis Head 
 Henry Lee 
22 Mar. 1722SIR THOMAS HALES754
 SAMUEL MILLES737
 Sir William Hardres516
31 Aug. 1727SIR WILLIAM HARDRES711
 SIR THOMAS HALES701
 Samuel Milles575
2 May 1734SIR WILLIAM HARDRES645
 THOMAS MAY643
 Sir Thomas Hales503
 HALES vice Hardres, on petition, 11 Apr. 1735 
21 May 1741THOMAS WATSON752
 THOMAS BEST718
 Sir Thomas Hales624
23 Jan. 1746SIR THOMAS HALES vice Watson, called to the Upper House 
1 July 1747MATTHEW ROBINSON685
 THOMAS BEST670
 Sir Thomas Hales559
 William Sheldon495

Main Article

In Canterbury, one of the nineteen cities and towns being counties in themselves, the returning officer was a sheriff, appointed by the corporation. At the contested election of 1715, when Sir Thomas Hales, a ministerial supporter, who had sat for the county in the previous reign, was returned with John Hardres, a Tory, who had represented the city in the last two Parliaments, one of the defeated candidates, Sir Francis Head, petitioned on the ground that the sheriff of the city had shown himself very partial to Hardres, inasmuch as several persons who were entitled to be made freemen and would have voted for Head were not allowed to become freemen until they promised to vote against him. The petition was not heard.1

In 1722 Hales was re-elected with another Tory, Samuel Milles, who had married his sister, against a second Tory candidate, Sir William Hardres. The same three stood again in 1727, when Hales was once more elected but Milles was defeated by Hardres.

In 1734 Hales again stood single ‘to keep up the spirit of my friends as long as I can, in hopes someone will venture to join me’,2 but nobody did. Defeated by Hardres and another Tory, Thomas May, he petitioned on the ground that the sheriff and mayor had refused 159 qualified voters for him, 7 of whom would also have voted for May. When the petition was heard by the elections committee, counsel for the sitting Member admitted the validity of these votes, with the result that Hales and May were declared by the House of Commons to be duly elected.3

In 1741 Hales, again standing single, was defeated by a wealthy Tory, Thomas Best, standing jointly with an opposition Whig, Thomas Watson. On Watson’s succeeding to his brother’s peerage in 1745 Hales was returned unopposed for the vacancy, but in 1747 he was finally ousted by Matthew Robinson, a wealthy opposition Whig, who was returned with Best. Observing of Robinson that ‘if we may credit him he will certainly be re-chosen’, the 2nd Lord Egmont remarks of Canterbury in his electoral survey, c.1749-50, ‘money will do a great deal in this election’.

Author: A. N. Newman

Notes

  • 1. CJ, xviii. 33.
  • 2. To the Duke of Dorset, 7 Oct. 1733, Sackville mss, Kent Archives Office.
  • 3. CJ, xxii. 333.