Northamptonshire

County

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Number of voters:

over 4,000

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
17 Feb. 1715SIR JUSTINIAN ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
5 Apr. 1722SIR JUSTINIAN ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
28 Aug. 1727SIR JUSTINIAN ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
21 May 1730SIR JUSTINIAN ISHAM vice Sir Justinian Isham, deceased2171
 William Hanbury2000
2 May 1734SIR JUSTINIAN ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
31 Mar. 1737SIR EDMUND ISHAM vice Sir Justinian Isham, deceased 
21 May 1741SIR EDMUND ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
9 July 1747SIR EDMUND ISHAM 
 THOMAS CARTWRIGHT 
14 Apr. 1748VALENTINE KNIGHTLEY vice Cartwright, deceased2228
 William Hanbury2082

Main Article

From 1701 to 1730 the Northamptonshire seats were held by two Tory country gentlemen, Sir Justinian Isham of Lamport and Thomas Cartwright of Aynhoe, after 1705 without opposition. The first contest occurred on Isham’s death in 1730, when a Whig candidate, William Hanbury, appealed to the freeholders ‘to assert their ancient and just rights of election’, of which it was suggested, they had been deprived for over 20 years by an unholy compact between the great local landowners ‘to preserve the peace of the county’. He also announced that, in implied contrast with his opponents, he ‘gives his tenants free liberty to vote and solicit (if they please) against him’.1 He was narrowly defeated by Isham’s son and again, on Cartwright’s death in 1748, by another Tory squire, Valentine Knightley, who shared the representation with the Ishams till his death in 1754 when he was succeeded by another Cartwright of Aynhoe.

Author: Romney R. Sedgwick

Notes

  • 1. E. G. Forrester, Northants. County Elections, 1695-1832, pp. 48-50.