Leicester

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 freemen and householders paying scot and lot

Number of voters:

about 1,800

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
25 Jan. 1715SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT 
 JAMES WINSTANLEY 
3 Feb. 1719THOMAS NOBLE vice Winstanley, deceased 
21 Mar. 1722LAWRENCE CARTER795
 SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT766
 Thomas Boothby660
27 Jan. 1727THOMAS BOOTHBY SKRYMSHER vice Carter, appointed to office 
21 Aug. 1727GEORGE WRIGHTE 
 SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT 
 Thomas Boothby Skrymsher 
30 Apr. 1734SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT1080
 GEORGE WRIGHTE1028
 Rogers Ruding704
 William Hewitt264
27 Apr. 1737JAMES WIGLEY vice Beaumont, deceased993
 Rogers Ruding654
4 May 1741GEORGE WRIGHTE 
 JAMES WIGLEY 
29 June 1747GEORGE WRIGHTE 
 JAMES WIGLEY 

Main Article

The chief interest at Leicester was that of the Tory corporation, who were Jacobite sympathizers. Troops were quartered in the town during the rebellion of 1715. At the time of the Atterbury plot of 1722, the Duke of Rutland and other Whig leaders alleged that the corporation had allowed the enlisting of men in the Pretender’s service and the proclaiming of him as James III in the town. They were also accused of tolerating Jacobite disturbances in 1738 and 1744. The Whigs in Leicester drew their main support from the hosiers, who by the mid-1740s formed nearly half of the freemen, and were largely Dissenters.1

Both seats were held by Tory country gentlemen until 1722 when its recorder, Lawrence Carter, solicitor-general to the Prince of Wales, was returned. On Carter’s being made a judge, Thomas Boothby Skrymsher, related to the Walpoles, succeeded him. Skrymsher lost his seat in 1727, petitioning on the ground that the mayor as returning officer had rejected legal votes for him, accepted votes against him by persons who had no right to vote, and created great numbers of freemen to vote for his opponents, though they had no right to be made freemen.2 The petition was not heard. After this only Tories were returned.

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. VCH Leics. iv. 123-6, 178; R. Greaves, Corp. of Leicester, 92-94, 97-98.
  • 2. CJ, xxi. 32.