Stafford

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 the resident freemen

Number of voters:

about 400

Elections

DateCandidateVotes
5 Apr. 1754William Richard Chetwynd 
 Hon. William Richard Chetwynd 
2 Apr. 1761William Richard Chetwynd 
 Hon. William Richard Chetwynd 
4 Mar. 1765John Crewe vice Hon. William Richard Chetwynd, deceased177
 William Chetwynd144
18 Mar. 1768Richard Whitworth237
 William Richard Chetwynd, 3rd Visct. Chetwynd222
 Hugo Meynell206
12 Apr. 1770William Nevil Hart vice Chetwynd, deceased 
8 Oct. 1774Hugo Meynell 
 Richard Whitworth 
12 Sept. 1780Edward Monckton258
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan248
 Richard Whitworth168
 Andrew Drummond46
31 Mar. 1784Edward Monckton 
 Richard Brinsley Sheridan 

Main Article

Stafford was an expensive and difficult constituency, with an electorate composed mostly of tradesmen.1 About 1754 it was under the patronage of the Chetwynds of Ingestre Hall, but by 1774 they had lost all their interest. ‘No Cornish borough is more venal’, wrote Josiah Wedgwood, the potter, in 1780;2 and Robinson in 1783 described the borough as ‘very open’.

Author: John Brooke

Notes

  • 1. See the analysis of the poll book of 1765 in J. C. Wedgwood, Staffs. Parlty. Hist. ii. 278-9.
  • 2. Ibid. 301.