Dover

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 600

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
6 Jan. 1715MATTHEW AYLMER 
 PHILIP PAPILLON 
24 Apr. 1717AYLMER re-elected after appointment to office 
28 Mar. 1718AYLMER re-elected after appointment to office 
20 Dec. 1720GEORGE BERKELEY vice Aylmer, deceased 
20 Dec. 1720 HENRY FURNESE vice Papillon, appointed to office 
27 Mar. 1722GEORGE BERKELEY 
 HENRY FURNESE 
6 June 1723BERKELEY re-elected after appointment to office 
15 Aug. 1727HENRY FURNESE382
 GEORGE BERKELEY306
 Philip Papillon237
24 Apr. 1734DAVID PAPILLON427
 THOMAS REVELL419
 Henry Furnese297
4 May 1741THOMAS REVELL525
 LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE464
 Henry Furnese242
26 June 1747LORD GEORGE SACKVILLE 
 THOMAS REVELL 
7 Feb. 1752WILLIAM CAYLEY vice Revell, deceased 

Main Article

The chief interests in Dover were those of the Whig corporation; of the Government, based on the local customs and admiralty services; of the Duke of Dorset, for most of the period lord warden of the Cinque Ports; and of two neighbouring rival Whig families, the Papillons and the Furneses. In 1715 Philip Papillon, who had sat for Dover since 1701, was returned unopposed with another Whig, Admiral Aylmer, M.P. Dover 1697-1713. On Aylmer’s death the Duke of Dorset put up George Berkeley, who wrote to his brother, then first lord of the Admiralty, August 1720:

Though Lord Dorset sets me up I find it must be your Lordship’s interest both at Dover and in town that must carry it for me ... Young Craggs ... bid me tell my Lord Dorset that ... he and the ministry were under some engagements to assist Mr. Furnese, but that ... if you pleased to insist very strongly those promises would be of very little consequence.1

The matter was settled by Papillon’s giving up his seat to Furnese, in return for a place for himself and a promise of a seat for his son, David. Berkeley and Furnese were re-elected in 1727, in spite of an attempt by Papillon to regain the seat. At the next general election the ministerial candidates were David Papillon and Thomas Revell, an Admiralty official, Berkeley and Furnese having gone into opposition. On 23 Oct. 1733 the Duke of Dorset was told that

Mr. Furnese’s long residence at Dover and near it and the expenses made there by him and Sir Henry [Furnese] (who declares he will stick at no expense to support his cousin) endangers matters there.2

Furnese was defeated in 1734, and again in 1741, when Papillon in return for a place gave up his seat to the Duke of Dorset’s son, Lord George Sackville, who was re-elected unopposed with Revell in 1747. On Revell’s death he was succeeded by another ministerial nominee, like his predecessor a stranger. In the 2nd Lord Egmont’s electoral survey, c.1749-50, Dover is described as ‘in the Crown’.

Author: A. N. Newman

Notes

  • 1. Add. 22628, f. 99.
  • 2. Sackville mss, Kent Archives Office.