Petersfield

Double Member Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in burgage holders

Number of voters:

about 70

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
19 Apr. 1754William Gerard Hamilton 
 William Beckford 
9 Dec. 1754Sir John Philipps vice Beckford, chose to sit for London 
29 Apr. 1756Hamilton re-elected after appointment to office 
1 Apr. 1761John Jolliffe 
 Richard Pennant 
17 Dec. 1767Richard Croftes vice Pennant, vacated his seat 
22 Mar. 1768William Jolliffe 
 Welbore Ellis 
8 Feb. 1770Ellis re-elected after appointment to office 
15 Feb. 1772Jolliffe re-elected after appointment to office 
7 Oct. 1774William Jolliffe55
 Sir Abraham Hume52
 John Luttrell17
6 Sept. 1780William Jolliffe 
 Thomas Samuel Jolliffe 
15 Apr. 1783William Jolliffe re-elected after appointment to office 
31 Mar. 1784William Jolliffe 
 Thomas Samuel Jolliffe 
9 Feb. 1787John Christopher Burton Dawnay, Visct. Downe, vice Thomas Samuel Jolliffe, vacated his seat 

Main Article

John Jolliffe inherited from his first wife a number of burgages at Petersfield, and in 1736 established his hold on the borough by acquiring from Edward Gibbon sen. the manor and further burgages. So long as the Jolliffes’ title to them was valid, their hold on the borough was complete. On the two occasions 1754-90 when it was unsuccessfully challenged, the point at issue was a legal technicality concerning the burgages: in 1761 Edward Gibbon jun. stood against Jolliffe’s interest ‘upon the supposition he could not transfer any of his votes, having settled them upon his wife’; and John Luttrell after his defeat in 1774 questioned in a petition to the House of Commons Jolliffe’s right to convey the burgages.

Author: Mary M. Drummond

Notes