Lostwithiel

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 corporation

Number of voters:

24

Elections

DateCandidate
28 Jan. 1715GALFRIDUS WALPOLE
 THOMAS LIDDELL
26 Nov. 1718EDWARD ELIOT vice Liddell, deceased
25 June 1720JOHN NEWSHAM vice Eliot, appointed to office
1 May 1721WILLIAM CAVENDISH, Mq. of Hartington, vice Walpole, appointed to office
14 Apr. 1722WILLIAM CAVENDISH, Mq. of Hartington
 PHILIP DORMER STANHOPE, Lord Stanhope
 Sir Thomas Hardy
 Charles Legh
25 Feb. 1724SIR ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN vice Hartington, chose to sit for Grampound
 HENRY PARSONS vice Stanhope, appointed to office
 Thomas Digges
26 Jan. 1727SIR WILLIAM STANHOPE vice Parsons, appointed to office
 Darrell Trelawny
25 Aug. 1727SIR ORLANDO BRIDGEMAN
 DARRELL TRELAWNY
29 Feb. 1728ANTHONY CRACHERODE vice Bridgeman, chose to sit for Bletchingley
 SIR EDWARD KNATCHBULL vice Trelawny, deceased
29 Apr. 1734RICHARD EDGCUMBE
 PHILIP LLOYD
31 Mar. 1735MATTHEW DUCIE MORETON vice Lloyd, deceased
19 Mar. 1736JOHN CROSSE vice Moreton, called to the Upper House
11 May 1741SIR JOHN CROSSE
 SIR ROBERT SALUSBURY COTTON
3 July 1747RICHARD EDGCUMBE
 JAMES EDWARD COLLETON

Main Article

In 1715 Lostwithiel was under the control of a local family named Johns, who had acquired an hereditary hold on the office of mayor, carrying with it that of returning officer. They placed both seats at the disposal of the Administration,1 whose expenses there in 1727 were forecast2 at £460:

8 votes at £20 each£160
Johns for returning and to his wife and daughters£300

In 1733 the borough was given a new charter under which control passed from the Johns family to Richard Edgcumbe, the government manager for the Cornish boroughs, who thenceforth returned both Members without a contest. In 1740 Thomas Pitt, the Prince of Wales's election manager in Cornwall, 'determined to attack Mr. Edgcumbe in his headquarters' at Lostwithiel,3 but in the end gave up. In 1747 he spent about £2,000 in fomenting an opposition,4 which again failed to materialize, the Administration holding both seats at a cost of £1,271.5

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. See Thos. Digges to Walpole, 21 Feb. 1724, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss; HMC Townshend, 347.
  • 2. J. Wolrige to Walpole, 1 July 1727, Cholmondeley (Houghton) mss.
  • 3. Chatham mss.
  • 4. HMC Fortescue, i. 110, 114, 122.
  • 5. Namier, Structure, 348 n. 4.