Grampound (UK Parliament constituency)

Grampound in Cornwall, was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1821. It was represented by two Members of Parliament.

Grampound
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1547–1821
Number of members	Two
Replaced by	Cornwall

History

Grampound's market was on a Saturday and the town had a glove factory. Grampound was created a Borough by a charter of King Edward VI with a Mayor, eight Aldermen, a Recorder, and a Town Clerk. In 1547 it sent members to Parliament for the first time, one of a number of rotten boroughs in Cornwall established during the Tudor period.

Boundaries

The constituency was a Parliamentary borough in Cornwall, covering Grampound, a market town 8 miles from Truro on the River Fal.

Franchise

The franchise for the borough was in the hands of Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen and any Freemen created by the council. In 1816, T. H. B. Oldfield wrote that there were 42 voters in all. Given that the borough had 80 houses, this meant that the franchise was extended well into the working class.

While several patrons (including the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe, Lord Eliot, Sir Christopher Hawkins and Basil Cochrane) attempted to exert their influence over the choice of members to serve Grampound, the electors were more interested in the monetary value of their vote. Oldfield wrote "The freemen of this borough have been known to boast of receiving three hundred guineas a man for their votes at one election." So notorious and unmanageable did the borough become that Grampound became a byword for electoral corruption, and Edward Porritt noted its use was continuing in 1903.

Disfranchisement for corruption

Finally, after the return of two members in the 1818 general election was overturned by a petition alleging gross bribery, Lord John Russell moved to disfranchise Grampound and to transfer the two members to a new Parliamentary Borough of Leeds. The usual treatment for a Borough which had perpetual bribery (as practiced in New Shoreham in 1770, Cricklade in 1782, Aylesbury in 1804 and East Retford in 1828) was to expand its boundaries and franchise into an area free of corruption but that was not possible in Grampound where the neighbouring towns were also Parliamentary boroughs and increasing the electorate would simply increase the pool of potential bribed voters.

After a delay caused by the accession of King George IV and the scandal of Queen Caroline's return and the Pains and Penalties Bill, Russell introduced a Bill in January 1821. The suggestion of Leeds as a new borough met with resistance because of the large number of working class voters who would be enfranchised, and when an amendment to raise the qualification was passed, Russell withdrew his Bill; however, the mover of the amendment introduced his own. The House of Lords amended the Bill to give the two members instead to the county of Yorkshire, an amendment accepted and which eventually went into law. Grampound was disfranchised by 1 & 2 Geo. IV, c. 47.

Members of Parliament

1547–1629

Parliament	First member	Second member
Parliament of 1547	Henry Knollys	Peter Sainthill
First Parliament of 1553	Thomas Niccolls	Egidius Wilson
Second Parliament of 1553	Sir Thomas Smith	Sir William Smythwick
Parliament of 1554	Richard Chappell	Sir Thomas Cornwallis
Parliament of 1554–1555	Robert Vaughan	George Tedlowe
Parliament of 1555	Richard Chappell	John Harris
Parliament of 1558	Thomas Herle	Robert Rychers
Parliament of 1559	Sir John Radcliffe	Ralph Couch[1][2]
Parliament of 1562	Sir John Pollard	Christopher Perne
1566	Perne declared lunatic, replaced by John Dodmer
Parliament of 1571	Edward Clere	John Hussey
Parliament of 1572–1581	Edmund Slyfield
Parliament of 1584–1585	William Stoughton	Charles Trevanion
Parliament of 1586–1587	Thomas Cromwell	John Herbert
Parliament of 1588–1589		Richard Sayer
Parliament of 1593	Richard Edgecumbe	Edward Jones
Parliament of 1597–1598	Sir John Leigh	Robert Newdigate
Parliament of 1601	Sir John Gray	John Astell
Parliament of 1604–1611	William Noy	(Sir) Francis Barnham
Addled Parliament (1614)	Thomas St Aubyn
Parliament of 1621–1622	John Hampden	Sir Robert Carey
Happy Parliament (1624–1625)	John Mohun	Richard Edgcumbe
Useless Parliament (1625)		Sir Samuel Rolle
Parliament of 1625–1626	Edward Thomas	Thomas St Aubyn
Parliament of 1628–1629	Lord Carey	Sir Robert Pye
No Parliament summoned 1629–1640

1640–1821

Election			First member[3]	First party	Second member[3]	Second party
		April 1640	William Coryton		John Trevanion	Royalist
		November 1640			James Campbell	Parliamentarian
		1640	Sir John Trevor	Parliamentarian
		December 1648			Campbell excluded in Pride's Purge – seat vacant
		1653	Grampound was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
		January 1659	Thomas Herle		Robert Scawen
		May 1659	Sir John Trevor		One seat vacant
		April 1660	Thomas Herle		Hugh Boscawen
		October 1660	John Tanner
		1661			Charles Trevanion
		February 1679	Sir Joseph Tredenham	Tory
		August 1679	John Tanner		Nicholas Herle
		1685	Sir Joseph Tredenham	Tory	Robert Foley
		1689	Edward Herle		John Tanner
		1690	Walter Vincent
		1692	John Buller
		1695	Hugh Fortescue
		1698	Sir William Scawen
		1699			Francis Scobell
		1702	James Craggs	Whig
		1708			Thomas Scawen
		1710			Thomas Coke
		1713	Andrew Quick
		1715	Hon. John West		Charles Cooke
		1721			Richard West
		1722	Marquess of Hartington	Whig	Humphry Morice	Whig
		1727	Philip Hawkins
		1732			Isaac le Heup
		1734			Thomas Hales	Whig
		1739	Thomas Trefusis
		1741	Daniel Boone		William Banks
		1747	Lord George Bentinck		Thomas Hawkins
		1754	Merrick Burrell[4]		Simon Fanshawe
		1768	Grey Cooper		Charles Wolfran Cornwall
		1774	Hon. Sir Joseph Yorke	Whig	Richard Neville
		1780	Sir John Ramsden, Bt		Thomas Lucas
		1784	Hon. John Somers Cocks		Francis Baring	Whig
		1790	Thomas Wallace		Jeremiah Crutchley
		1796	Bryan Edwards		Robert Sewell
		1800	Sir Christopher Hawkins	Tory
		1802			Benjamin Hobhouse
		1806			Henry Fawcett
		1807	Hon. Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone		Hon. George Cochrane
		March 1808[5]	Robert Williams		John Teed
		May 1808	William Holmes	Tory	Hon. George Cochrane
		1812			Hon. Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone[6]
		1812	John Teed
		1814			Ebenezer John Collett
		1818	John Innes		Alexander Robertson

• Constituency disenfranchised for corruption (1821)

Elections

As with most boroughs in the unreformed House of Commons, Grampound was uncontested at most elections. The only contested elections after 1660 were:

• 1741: The sitting members, Thomas Hales and Thomas Trefusis, (who were supporters of Robert Walpole) were challenged by Daniel Boone and William Banks. Hales and Trefusis were supported by Richard Edgcumbe who was managing the Cornish Boroughs for the Government and controlled the Grampound corporation, but Boone and Banks arranged for an alternate Mayor to be elected and indemnified the Sheriff of the County against any legal expenses if he delivered the writs for the election to their Mayor and was sued. They secured their election by 27 votes to 23, while an alternative poll by the original Mayor returned Hales and Trefusis with 35 votes to 17 for their opponents. However, Hales and Trefusis declined to press their challenge through an election petition.

General election 1741: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Daniel Boone	27	27%	N/A
	N/A	William Banks	27	27%	N/A
	N/A	Thomas Hales	23	23%	N/A
	N/A	Thomas Trefusis	23	23%	N/A

• 1754: Sir John St Aubyn, Bt and Francis Beauchamp were proposed as candidates apparently without their knowledge by local malcontent voters who wanted to raise the level of their bribery. They secured 13 votes to 31 for Merrick Burrell and Simon Fanshawe, who were government candidates.

General election 1754: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Merrick Burrell	31	35%	N/A
	N/A	Simon Fanshawe	31	35%	N/A
	N/A	John St Aubyn	13	15%	N/A
	N/A	Francis Beauchamp	13	15%	N/A

General election 1796: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Bryan Edwards	12	33%	N/A
	N/A	Robert Sewell	12	33%	N/A
	N/A	Lord Grey of Groby	6	17%	N/A
	N/A	Jeremiah Crutchley	6	17%	N/A

General election 1807: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone	27	33%	N/A
	N/A	George Frederick Augustus Cochrane	27	33%	N/A
	N/A	Robert Williams	14	17%	N/A
	N/A	Henry Baring	13	16%	N/A

• Election declared void, 7 March 1808
• 1808: Robert Williams (1767–1847) and John Teed 14; George Cochrane and William Holmes 13 by first returning officer. Cochrane and Holmes 27; Williams and Teed 14 by second returning officer. Williams and Teed seated on petition, 10 May 1808.

By-Election 1808: Grampound

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Robert Williams	14	26%	N/A
	N/A	John Teed	14	26%	N/A
	N/A	George Frederick Augustus Cochrane	13	24%	N/A
	N/A	William Holmes	13	24%	N/A

General election 1812: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	John Teed	55	47%	N/A
	N/A	Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone	34	29%	N/A
	N/A	Charles Trelawny Brereton	28	24%	N/A
	N/A	William Holmes	0	16%	N/A
	N/A	William Congreve	0	16%	N/A

• Andrew Cochrane-Johnstone expelled for committing stock fraud

By-Election 1814: Grampound

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	Ebenezer John Collett	45	90%	N/A
	N/A	George Conway Montagu	5	10%	N/A

General election 1818: Grampound (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	N/A	John Innes (MP)	36	34%	N/A
	N/A	Alexander Robertson	36	34%	N/A
	N/A	John Teed	11	10%	N/A
	N/A	Ebenezer John Collett	11	10%	N/A
	N/A	Benjamin Shaw	11	10%	N/A
	N/A	William Allen	1	1%	N/A

See also

• List of former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies

Notes

1. "Grampound". History of Parliament online. Retrieved 30 March 2012.
2. No members are listed for Grampound in 1559 in the Return of Members, but Browne Willis (who supplemented the returns from other sources) names Pollard and Perne for 1559 as well as 1563
3. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "G" (part 2)
4. Sir Merrick Burrell, Bt, from 1766
5. The election of 1807, at which Cochrane-Johnstone and Cochrane were returned, was declared void; at the resulting by-election Williams and Teed were initially declared returned, but eventually Cochrane and Holmes were seated, see below
6. Expelled from the House of Commons, 1814

References

• "Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland" by Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield (Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, London, 1816)
• "Return of Members of Parliament" (1878)
• "The Unreformed House of Commons by Edward Porritt (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• "Members of the Long Parliament" by D. Brunton and D. H. Pennington (George Allen and Unwin, 1954)
• "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" by Henry Stooks Smith (2nd edition, edited by F. W. S Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. p. 1.
• Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808)
• Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "G" (part 2)