Ipswich

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 525

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
28 Jan. 1715WILLIAM THOMPSON 
 WILLIAM CHURCHILL 
28 Feb. 1717THOMPSON re-elected after appointment to office 
13 Dec. 1717FRANCIS NEGUS vice Churchill, appointed to office 
21 Mar. 1722SIR WILLIAM THOMPSON 
 FRANCIS NEGUS 
30 May 1726THOMPSON re-elected after appointment to office 
21 Aug. 1727FRANCIS NEGUS438
 SIR WILLIAM THOMPSON396
 — Crowley214
27 Jan. 1730PHILIP BROKE vice Thompson, appointed to office286
 John Shepherd237
29 Jan. 1733WILLIAM WOLLASTON vice Negus, deceased 
25 Apr. 1734SAMUEL KENT308
 WILLIAM WOLLASTON296
 Edward Vernon215
 Philip Colman195
8 May 1741EDWARD VERNON527
 SAMUEL KENT298
 Knox Ward224
29 June 1747EDWARD VERNON 
 SAMUEL KENT 

Main Article

At Ipswich the two parties were so evenly balanced that the corporation could normally control elections through their power to create new freemen.1 Both seats were filled by government candidates without opposition till 1727, when the sitting Members were re-elected after a contest. At a contested by-election in 1730 a Tory country gentleman was returned, causing the Whig Member for the borough to warn Walpole that it was ‘high time to try to defeat the Tory scheme, which our always forward ones have begun’.2 A violent contest occurred in 1734, when the corporation were divided between the supporters of the Government and those of a popular opposition candidate, Captain, afterwards the celebrated admiral, Vernon, who had bought an estate near Ipswich.3 On this occasion the government candidates were successful but in 1741 Vernon, then at the peak of his nationwide popularity, headed the poll, practically every elector voting for him. His fellow Member was Samuel Kent, a government supporter, who was re-elected with him unopposed in 1747.

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

  • 1. CJ, xvii. 528.
  • 2. Francis Negus to Sir Robt. Walpole, 10 Aug. 1730, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss.
  • 3. G. R. Clarke, Ipswich, 91.