Go To Section
Chipping Wycombe
Borough
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Background Information
Right of Election:
in the freemen
Number of voters:
about 160
Elections
Date | Candidate | Votes |
---|---|---|
24 Jan. 1715 | SIR THOMAS LEE | |
SIR JOHN WITTEWRONG | ||
8 Feb. 1722 | JOHN NEALE vice Wittewrong, deceased | |
24 Mar. 1722 | CHARLES EGERTON | |
HENRY PETTY, Baron Shelburne | ||
Harry Waller | ||
1 Feb. 1726 | CHARLES COLYEAR, Visct. Milsington vice Egerton, deceased | 49 |
Harry Waller | 2 | |
Election declared void, 22 Feb. 1726 | ||
3 Mar. 1726 | CHARLES COLYEAR, Visct. Milsington | 81 |
Harry Waller | 80 | |
WALLER vice Colyear, on petition, 17 Mar. 1726 | ||
17 Aug. 1727 | HARRY WALLER | |
WILLIAM LEE | ||
27 Jan. 1731 | SIR CHARLES VERNON vice Lee, appointed to office | |
23 Apr. 1734 | EDMUND WALLER | |
HARRY WALLER | ||
17 Feb. 1735 | SIR CHARLES VERNON vice Edmund Waller, chose to sit for Great Marlow | |
4 May 1741 | EDMUND WALLER | |
HARRY WALLER | ||
29 Dec. 1744 | EDMUND WALLER re-elected after appointment to office | |
27 June 1747 | EDMUND WALLER sen. | |
EDMUND WALLER jun. |
Main Article
The franchise at Wycombe was controlled by the corporation, a close body, with the power of creating freemen. At George I’s accession the patron of the corporation was Thomas, 1st Marquess of Wharton, the head of the Whig interest in the county, whose nominees were returned unopposed shortly before his death in 1715. In 1722 the Wallers of Beaconsfield made an unsuccessful bid for a seat, with the support of the mayor, who was deposed by a meeting of the freemen for illegally attempting to create new freemen ‘to overthrow the interest of the late Marquess of Wharton’.1 The Wharton interest disintegrated after 1725, when Wharton’s heir had to sell his Winchendon estate and go abroad, where he joined the Pretender. At a by-election in 1726 the Wallers secured the seat on petition, after the mayor had twice returned a Wharton candidate by methods which led to his committal to Newgate by the House of Commons.2 In 1727 the Wallers compromised the election with the Lees of Hartwell; but after William Lee’s promotion to a judgeship in 1731 they nominated both Members without opposition till 1754.