Winchelsea (UK Parliament constituency)

Winchelsea
Former Cinque Port constituency for the House of Commons
1366–1832
Number of members	Two

Winchelsea was a parliamentary constituency in Sussex, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1366 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

History

Boundaries

Winchelsea was a Cinque Port, which made it technically of different status from a parliamentary borough, but the difference was purely a nominal one, and it was considered an egregious example of a rotten borough. The constituency consisted of the town and parish of Winchelsea, once a market town and port but by the 19th century much reduced in importance, a mile-and-a-half inland with its harbour destroyed. In 1831, the population of the constituency was estimated at 772, and the town contained 148 houses.

History of corruption

The right to vote was exercised by the freemen of the town, of whom by 1831 there were just 11, even though in theory the custom was that every son of a freeman and every freeholder in the town was entitled to his freedom. With so small a number of voters, bribery was often the rule rather than the exception, though occasionally it became so blatant that the authorities were able to take steps against it. In 1700 an election at Winchelsea was declared void, an agent of one of the candidates arrested for bribery by order of the House of Commons, and the representation of the borough suspended until the end of the session. At another controversial election in 1712, the Commons committee which investigated was told that voters had been bribed with £30 each to vote for the sitting MPs, and their female connections received additional payments of half a guinea each.

Nor was the expense confined to bribing the voters. Oldfield records that in 1811, with only 11 voters to poll, the Mayor demanded – and received – a fee of £200 for his services as returning officer. However, he presumably carried out his duties more satisfactorily than his predecessor in 1624, who was "brought to the bar [of the House of Commons], and on his knees severely reprimanded, and sentenced to be committed to prison" for threatening some of the voters and corruptly excluding some others from casting their votes.^[1]

Almost as troublesome was the election of 1667, when it was alleged that the Mayor had not taken the sacrament – being a communicating member of the Church of England being at that period a requirement for holding civic office – and that therefore the election he had conducted was void. The committee agreed, and proposed a motion that the MP who had been returned was not duly elected, but the whole House voted it down, and the election was allowed to stand. In 1702, again, the Mayor was taken into custody for corrupt practices, and expelled from all his offices in the Customs by resolution of the Commons, against the opposition of government ministers, in whose interests the corruption had been executed.

Patronage

Winchelsea affords an unusual instance of a sitting MP wresting control of a pocket borough from its "patrons", so as to be able to be sure of securing re-election on his own account. In the first half of the 18th century, Winchelsea was a "treasury borough", that is one where the influence of the government was so strong that ministers were able to consider themselves the patrons and be sure of the power to choose both MPs. In 1754, however, one of the government candidates was an Irishman named Arnold Nesbitt. Once elected, Nesbitt began to buy houses in Winchelsea so as to secure influence over the freemen, and was so far successful that by the time of the next election it was accepted that he had the absolute command of one of the seats; indeed, when he stood well with the Treasury he was also allowed to nominate for both. For the rest of his life he successfully defended his control of Winchelsea from the free-spending of the Treasury's agents; on one occasion, it appears that the town clerk was directing the government campaign and finding himself needing more funds for the purpose than had been provided pawned the town's charters and civic regalia.

However, in 1779 Nesbitt died £100,000 in debt, and the Court of Chancery made a decree to auction his property for the relief of his creditors, but his nephew anticipating this managed to sell the Nesbitt interest in the borough back to the government's supporters (in the person of The Earl of Darlington) for the very considerable sum of £15,000, shortly before the court's decree came into force. Ministers were free once more to consider both seats at the ministry's disposal. However, Oldfield notes that Nesbitt's power in the borough was one of influence rather than of any direct property in the votes (as might have been the case in a burgage borough where the right to vote could literally be bought and sold) – and that whatever the bargain between Nesbitt's nephew and Darlington, the voters themselves were not a party to it and had still to be persuaded to co-operate. Therefore what was sold, in effect, was the unhindered right to bribe the voters without interference, the customary price by this time being apparently £100 per vote.

Abolition

Winchelsea was abolished as a separate constituency by the Reform Act, but the nearby Cinque Port of Rye retained one of its two MPs, and Rye's parliamentary boundaries were extended to include Winchelsea from 1832.

Members of Parliament

1366–1640

Parliament	First Member	Second Member
1373	Robert Harry I[2]
1377	Robert Arnold [3]
1378	Roger Dover [4]	William Skele I [5]
1381	William Skele I [5]
1382 (May)	Robert Harry I [2]
1382 (Oct)	Henry Sely [6]
1383 (Feb)	John Pulham [7]	William Skele I[5]
1383 (Oct)	John Pulham [7]
1384 (Apr)	William Skele I[5]
1385	John Pulham [7]
1386	William Skele I	John Pulham [8]
1388 (Feb)	William Skele I	John Pulham or Robert Harry I [8]
1388 (Sep)	Henry Sely	Matthew Goldyve [8]
1390 (Jan)	William Skele I	Roger Dover [8]
1390 (Nov)
1391	William Skele I	Vincent Ewell [8]
1393	Robert Arnold	Thomas Bette [8]
1394
1395	Vincent Fynch I	William Skele II [8]
1397 (Jan)	Vincent Fynch I	John Helde [8]
1397 (Sep)
1399	Roger atte Gate	William Skele II [8]
1401
1402	Vincent Fynch I	John Salerne II [8]
1403	Walter Young
1404 (Jan)
1404 (Oct)
1406	Vincent Fynch II	John Worton [8]
1407	John Salerne II	Robert Fishlake [8]
1410	Roger atte Gate	John Tunstall [8]
1411
1413 (Feb)
1413 (May)	Roger atte Gate	Thomas Young [8]
1414 (Apr)
1414 (Nov)	Roger atte Gate	William Catton [8]
1415
1416 (Mar)
1416 (Oct)
1417	John French	William Catton [8]
1419	John French	John Tamworth [8]
1420	Edward Hopyere	Roger atte Gate [8]
1421 (May)	Thomas Thunder	William Catton [8]
1421 (Dec)	Alexander Beuley	Roger atte Gate [8]
1425	Thomas Young
1449–1450	John Greenford
1495	Richard Barkeley
1497	Richard Barkeley
1510	Thomas Ashburnham	Robert Sparrow [9]
1512	?John Ashburnham I	?Robert Sparrow [9]
1515	?John Ashburnham I	?Robert Sparrow [9]
1523	Thomas Ashburnham	Robert Sparrow [9]
1529	Thomas Ensing	George Lowys [9]
1536	?Thomas Ensing	?George Lowys [9]
1539	not known[9]
1542	John Bell	Philip Chute[9]
1545	Philip Chute	Thomas Hynxstend[9]
1547	John Rowland	John More[9]
1553 (Mar)	William Egleston	Michael Blount[9]
1553 (Oct)	Sir Henry Crispe	William Roper[9]
1554 (Apr)	Cyriak Petyt	Joseph Beverleey[9]
1554 (Nov)	William Egleston	John Cheyne II[9]
1555	Thomas Smith	John Peyton[9]
1558	Sir George Howard	John Fowler[9]
1559	Goddard White	Henry Fane[10]
1562/3	Richard Chambers	Henry Fane [10]
1566	Henry Brooke ''alias'' Cobham replaced ?Chambers, ?deceased [10]
1571	Thomas Wilford	Robert Eyre [10]
1572	Thomas Wilford	Richard Barry [10]
1584	Giles Fletcher	Herbert Pelham [10]
1586	Adam Moyle	Thomas Egleston [10]
1588/9	Adam Moyle	Herbert Morley [10]
1593	Adam Ashburnham	Ashburnham Pecke [10]
1597	Ralph Ewens	Thomas Colepeper [10]
1601	Moyle Finch	Hugh Beeston [10]
1604	Adam White	Thomas Unton
1614	William Binge	Thomas Godfrey
1621	Thomas Finch	Edward Nicholas
1624	John Finch	Edward Nicholas
1625	Roger Twysden	Sir Ralph Freeman
1626	Roger Twysden	Sir Nicholas Saunders
1628	Sir William Twysden	Sir Ralph Freeman
1629–1640	No parliaments summoned

MPs 1640–1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
April 1640		Nicholas Crisp [11]	Royalist		John Finch
November 1640					John Finch	Parliamentarian
1641		William Smith	Royalist
September 1642				Finch died – seat left vacant
January 1644	Smith disabled from sitting – seat vacant
1645		Henry Oxenden			Samuel Gott
December 1648	Oxenden and Gott excluded in Pride's Purge – both seats vacant
1653	Winchelsea was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659		John Busbridge			Robert Fowle
May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660		William Howard			Samuel Gott
1661		Sir Nicholas Crisp			Francis Finch
1666		Robert Austen
February 1678					Sir John Banks
March 1678					Cresheld Draper
1681		Sir Stephen Lennard
1685		The Earl of Middleton
1689		Robert Austen			Samuel Western
1696		Sir George Chute
1698		John Hayes			Robert Bristow I
January 1701		Thomas Newport
November 1701		John Hayes			Robert Austen
1702		George Clarke			James Hayes
1705		George Dodington [12]
May 1708					Sir Francis Dashwood
December 1708		Robert Bristow II
1713					George Dodington
1715					George Bubb [13]
1722					Thomas Townshend
1727					John Scrope [14]
February 1728					Sir Archer Croft [15]
April 1728					Peter Walter
1734					Edmund Hungate Beaghan
1738		Robert Bristow III
1741		The Viscount Doneraile			Thomas Orby Hunter
1747		Lieutenant Colonel John Mordaunt
1754		Arnold Nesbitt
1759					Lieutenant Colonel George Gray
1760					Thomas Orby Hunter
March 1761		The Earl of Thomond
December 1761		(Sir) Thomas Sewell [16]
1768		The Earl of Thomond
1770					Arnold Nesbitt [17]
August 1774		William Nedham
October 1774		Charles Wolfran Cornwall
1775					William Nedham
1780					John Nesbitt
1784		William Nedham
1790		Viscount Barnard			Richard Barwell
1792		Sir Frederick Fletcher-Vane
1794		John Hiley Addington	Tory
May 1796		William Currie
December 1796					William Devaynes
1802		Robert Ladbroke	Whig		William Moffat	Whig
1806		Sir Frederick Fletcher-Vane	Whig		Calverley Bewicke	Whig
1807		Sir Oswald Mosley	Whig
1812		William Vane [18]	Whig
1815		Henry Brougham	Whig
1816					Viscount Barnard	Whig
1818					George Galway Mills	Whig
1820					Lucius Concannon	Whig
1823					William Leader	Whig
1826					Viscount Howick	Whig
February 1830		John Williams	Whig
July 1830					Henry Dundas	Tory
April 1831					Stephen Lushington [19]	Whig
July 1831					James Brougham	Whig
1832	Constituency abolished

Notes

1. The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland. V. 1816. p. 405.
2. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/harry-robert-i
3. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/arnold-robert-1408
4. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/dover-roger
5. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/skele-william-i-1410
6. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/sely-%28cely%29-henry
7. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/pulham-john
8. "History of Parliament". History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
9. "History of Parliament". History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
10. "History of Parliament". History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
11. Expelled for being a monopolist, February 1641
12. Dodington was re-elected in 1708, but had also been elected for Bridgwater, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Winchelsea again
13. Adopted the surname Dodington around 1720. He was re-elected in 1722, but had also been elected for Bridgwater, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Winchelsea again
14. Scrope was also elected for Bristol, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Winchelsea
15. Croft was also elected for Bere Alston, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Winchelsea
16. Knighted on being appointed Master of the Rolls, 1764
17. Nesbitt was re-elected in 1774, but had also been elected for Cricklade, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Winchelsea again
18. Assumed the surname Powlett by Royal Licence in 1813
19. Lushington was also elected for Ilchester, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Winchelsea

References

• Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807)
• D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
• Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808)
• T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 4)