In 1715 two Tories were re-elected against two Whigs after a violent contest.1 Petitions alleging partiality by the mayor as returning officer in accepting unqualified Tory votes were heard on eleven days at the bar of the House, who awarded the seats to the Whig candidates, rejecting a motion, presumably in the interests of the sitting Members, that

persons living in that part of the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, in the town of Taunton, which lies out of the limits of the borough of Taunton, who, at any time before the issuing writs for calling a new Parliament, take a room, and boil a pot, within the said borough, do thereby acquire a right of voting in the election of Members to serve in Parliament for the said borough.2

In 1722, when two Whigs were returned after a contest, the number of voters fell by about 300. Both seats were held by Whigs till 1734, when there was a compromise between Francis Fane, one of the sitting Members, and Berkeley Portman, a Tory. In 1741 the ministerial candidates were defeated by Sir John Chapman, an opposition Whig, and John Buck, a Tory. On Buck’s death in 1745 he was succeeded by one of the Wyndhams, who as a family had all gone over to the Government. Sir Charles Wyndham and Robert Webb, a candidate of the dissenting interest, were returned jointly unopposed as government supporters in 1747. On Wyndham’s succeeding as 2nd Earl of Egremont in 1750, he was able to nominate his friend, Admiral Rowley, for the vacancy, without opposition.