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Penryn
Penryn
Former borough constituency; for the House of Commons
County	Cornwall
Major settlements	Penryn
1553–1832
Seats	Two
Replaced by	Penryn & Falmouth

Penryn was a parliamentary borough in Cornwall, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1553 until 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and finally to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. Elections were held using the bloc vote system.

The Reform Act 1832 abolished the parliamentary borough of Penryn. The town of Penryn was combined with neighbouring Falmouth to form the new parliamentary borough of Penryn and Falmouth.

History

Franchise

The borough consisted of the town of Penryn, a market town in the west of Cornwall, two miles from the Killigrew seat of Arwenack House (which in the 17th century became the nucleus of the town of Falmouth). In the 16th century the Killigrew family owned the fee farm of Penryn borough,^[1] and thus had a strong influence in the borough of Penryn. The right to vote was exercised by all inhabitants paying scot and lot, which in prosperous Penryn made for a big enough electorate to ensure competitive elections; in the 18th century the number with the right to vote varied between 130 and 200, and by 1831 over 500 were qualified.

Nevertheless, Penryn recognised "patrons", important local landowners who were allowed influence in the choice of MPs. In the mid 18th century, the patrons were Lord Edgcumbe and Viscount Falmouth, both prominent "election managers" for the Whig government; but Edgcumbe's influence was much more secure than Falmouth's. Sir Lewis Namier, in his ground-breaking study of the elections of the 1750s and 1760s, took Penryn as one of his case studies.^[2] He quotes a contemporary source that Penryn prided itself "upon having had representatives of name and note", and the patrons' continued influence seems to have rested partly on their finding candidates for Penryn who fitted the voters' feeling of self-worth.

The election of 1761

In 1761, another influential local figure, Francis Basset, challenged the Edgcumbe and Falmouth domination. Edgcumbe had proposed the famous Admiral, George Rodney, while Falmouth's candidate was the less well-known Sir Edward Turner. Basset put up two candidates of his own, Edmund Maskelyne and George Clive, a London banker and cousin of the famous general "Clive of India", and there followed a vigorously contested and expensive election. Clive had paid his own expenses in the contest, but four years later still owed his cousin 2,000 guineas which had lent him for the purpose, which gives some idea of the scale of expenditure involved.

The politics of the period was complicated by the accession of King George III the previous year, which had disrupted many of the established party and factional alignments. A forged letter was apparently circulated in Penryn, seeming to show that Prime Minister Newcastle supported the Basset candidates, and this swayed a number of votes among Customs officers, who depended on government favour for their livelihood.

The Falmouth and Edgcumbe candidates won, receiving 68 votes each compared to 63 for Clive and 61 for Maskelyne, but from this point onwards the Falmouth influence was broken and in future elections it was Basset who found himself with the power of nomination in Penryn.

After the 1760s

Later in the century the patronage came to be shared between Basset and the Duke of Leeds, though in the last years before Reform Basset's son (who became Lord de Dunstanville) was allowed to exercise patronage alone on the understanding that he did not interfere in the Duke's other Cornish borough, Helston. Elections were generally contested, and the outcome was often a sharing of the representation with one Whig and one Tory returned. In this final period, elections in Penryn became notoriously corrupt, although as Namier suggests the notoriety may have arisen chiefly from the fact the bribery now involved private citizens on both sides instead of the government being complicit in it. In 1828, two years before the first attempt to pass a general Reform Act, the Whigs picked Penryn as a suitable case for an attempt at more limited reform after an election where voters were reportedly treated to a "breakfast" worth 24 guineas a head; they proposed a bill in the House of Commons to disfranchise Penryn and transfer its two seats to Manchester. First an act was rushed through Parliament to indemnify witnesses to the alleged corruption giving evidence on the disfranchising bill;^[3] which latter bill was, however, defeated because there was at this point a Tory majority opposed to Reform.^[4]

Unlike most of the Cornish rotten boroughs before 1832, Penryn was a town of reasonable size: in 1831, the population of the borough was 3,251, and contained 654 houses, which would have been big enough for Penryn to retain one of its two MPs under the Reform Act. However, neighbouring Falmouth was a much larger town and had no borough representation; the decision was therefore taken to extend the borough's boundaries to take in Falmouth, as well as parts of Budock and St Gluvias, which raised the population to 11,881. This newly delineated borough, which elected two MPs, was renamed Penryn and Falmouth.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1553–1629

First Parliament of 1553^[5]	John Johnson	Humphrey Corbet
Second Parliament of 1553	John Ayleworth	Ralph Skinner
Parliament of 1554	William Bendelows	Not known
Parliament of 1554-1555	James Trewynnard	Thomas Matthew
Parliament of 1555	John Courtenay	Ralph Cooke
Parliament of 1558	John Gardiner	John Couche, junior
Parliament of 1559	John Cosworth	John Bowyer
Parliament of 1563-1567	John Cosworth	John Bowyer
Parliament of 1571	John Killigrew (d.1584), of Arwenack (1571, 1572)	William Dodington
Parliament of 1572-1581	John Killigrew (d.1584), of Arwenack (1571, 1572)	Robert Petre
Parliament of 1584-1585	John Killigrew (c.1557-1605) of Arwenack (1584, 1586, 1597)^[6]	William Killigrew
Parliament of 1586-1587	John Killigrew (c.1557-1605) of Arwenack (1584, 1586, 1597)^[6]	William Onslow
Parliament of 1588-1589	Nicholas Saunders	Anthony Dillon
Parliament of 1593	John Osborne	Edward Phelips
Parliament of 1597-1598	John Killigrew(c.1557-1605) of Arwenack (1584, 1586, 1597)^[6]	Edward Jones
Parliament of 1601	Edward Seymour	Richard Messenger
Parliament of 1604-1611	Sir Richard Warburton died Sir William Maynard (1609-1611)	Thomas Prowse died Sir Edward Conway (1610-1611)
Addled Parliament (1614)	Sir William Killigrew	(Sir) Francis Crane
Parliament of 1621-1622	Robert Jermyn	(Sir) Francis Crane
Happy Parliament (1624-1625)	Edward Roberts	Sir Robert Killigrew
Useless Parliament (1625)		Sir Edwin Sandys
Parliament of 1625-1626		Sir Edwin Sandys
Parliament of 1628-1629	William Killigrew	Sir Thomas Edmunds
No Parliament summoned 1629-1640

MPs 1640–1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
April 1640		Sir Richard Vyvyan	Royalist		Joseph Hall	Parliamentarian
November 1640		Sir Nicholas Slanning^[7]	Royalist		John Bampfylde	Parliamentarian
August 1642	Slanning disabled from sitting - seat vacant ^[8]				John Bampfylde	Parliamentarian
December 1648	Slanning disabled from sitting - seat vacant ^[8]			Bampfylde excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant
1653	Penryn was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament
1654		John Fox		Penryn had only one seat in the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
1656
January 1659					Thomas Silly
May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660		Samuel Enys			James Robyns
1661		William Pendarves			John Birch
1673		Sir Robert Southwell			John Birch
February 1679		Sir Robert Southwell			Francis Trefusis
September 1679		Sir Nicholas Slanning			Charles Smythe
1685		Sir Nicholas Slanning			Henry Fanshawe
1689		Anthony Rowe			Alexander Pendarves	Tory
March 1690		Samuel Rolle
April 1690		Sidney Godolphin
1695		James Vernon	Whig
1698		James Vernon	Whig		Samuel Trefusis
1699		Alexander Pendarves	Tory
1705		James Vernon	Whig
1710		Alexander Pendarves	Tory
1713		Alexander Pendarves	Tory		Hugh Boscawen	Whig
1714		Samuel Trefusis			Hugh Boscawen	Whig
1720		Samuel Trefusis			Viscount Rialton	Whig
1722		Sidney Meadows			Edward Vernon	Tory^[9]
1727		Sir Cecil Bishopp			Edward Vernon	Tory^[9]
1734		Sir Richard Mill			John Clavering
1741		John Evelyn			Edward Vernon	Tory
1743 by-election		John Evelyn			George Boscawen
1747		Henry Seymour Conway	Whig
1754		Richard Edgcumbe
1758		John Plumptre
1761		Sir Edward Turner	Whig		George Brydges Rodney
1766 by-election		Francis Basset			George Brydges Rodney
1768		Francis Basset			Hugh Pigot	Whig
1770 by-election		William Lemon			Hugh Pigot	Whig
1774		Sir George Osborn			William Chaytor
1780		Sir Francis Basset			John Rogers
1782 by-election					Reginald Pole-Carew
1784					Sir John St Aubyn
1790					Richard Glover
1796		Thomas Wallace	Tory		William Meeke
1802		Sir Stephen Lushington, Bt	Tory		Sir John Nicholl	Tory
1806		Henry Swann	Tory		Sir Christopher Hawkins	Tory
February 1807					John Bettesworth-Trevanion	Tory
May 1807					Charles Lemon	Whig
1812					Philip Gell	Tory
1818					Sir Christopher Hawkins	Tory
1819		vacant ^[10]			Sir Christopher Hawkins	Tory
1820		Henry Swann	Tory		Pascoe Grenfell	Whig
1824 by-election		Robert Stanton	Tory		Pascoe Grenfell	Whig
1826		David Barclay	Whig		William Manning	Tory
1830		Sir Charles Lemon	Whig		James William Freshfield	Tory
1831		Charles Stewart	Tory		James William Freshfield	Tory
1832	Constituency abolished and renamed Penryn and Falmouth

Notes

^ Fuidge, N.M., biography of Killigrew, John I (d.1584), of Arwennack, Cornw., published in History of Parliament: House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981 [1]
^ Pages 305 to 315, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957)
^ Public Bills 1828 Vol.2 p.131 (No. 212) HLJ v.60 pp.152, 160, 182; HCJ v.83 pp.232, 236, 244; "An Act to indemnify Witnesses who may give Evidence, before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, on a Bill to exclude the Borough of Penryn from sending Members to serve in Parliament" (9 Geo. 4. c. 12).
^ Public Bills 1828 Vol.2 pp.87 (No. 51), 107 (No. 155), 127 (No. 195); HLJ v.60 Index sv "Elections—Bills—(Penryn Disfranchisement)"; HCJ v.83 Index p.958 sv "Penryn Disfranchisement".
^ Although Philbin among other authorities states that Penryn was first represented in the 1554 Parliament, Browne Willis lists members for Penryn in both the Parliaments of 1553. It is possible that he has mistaken their constituency.
^ ^a ^b ^c History of Parliament biography [2]
^ Mary Wolffe, ‘Slanning, Sir Nicholas (1606–1643)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 2 Jan 2011
^ A writ for a by-election to fill the vacancy was issued in May 1647, but there is no record of a new election ever having taken place
^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vernon, Edward" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
^ Henry Swann was re-elected in 1818, but his election was voided on petition. No new writ was issued, and the seat remained vacant until the 1820 general election

References

D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640-1832 (Cambridge University Press, 1972)
William Cobbett, 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)
J E Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
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)
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.
Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "P" (part 1)
Stooks Smith, Henry. (1973) [1844-1850]. Craig, F. W. S. (ed.). The Parliaments of England (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 45–46. ISBN 0-900178-13-2.

[1] Fuidge, N.M., biography of Killigrew, John I (d.1584), of Arwennack, Cornw., published in History of Parliament: House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981 [1]

[2] Pages 305 to 315, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957)

[3] Public Bills 1828 Vol.2 p.131 (No. 212) HLJ v.60 pp.152, 160, 182; HCJ v.83 pp.232, 236, 244; "An Act to indemnify Witnesses who may give Evidence, before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, on a Bill to exclude the Borough of Penryn from sending Members to serve in Parliament" (9 Geo. 4. c. 12).

[4] Public Bills 1828 Vol.2 pp.87 (No. 51), 107 (No. 155), 127 (No. 195); HLJ v.60 Index sv "Elections—Bills—(Penryn Disfranchisement)"; HCJ v.83 Index p.958 sv "Penryn Disfranchisement".

[5] Although Philbin among other authorities states that Penryn was first represented in the 1554 Parliament, Browne Willis lists members for Penryn in both the Parliaments of 1553. It is possible that he has mistaken their constituency.

[HP-6] History of Parliament biography [2]

[7] Mary Wolffe, ‘Slanning, Sir Nicholas (1606–1643)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 accessed 2 Jan 2011

[8] A writ for a by-election to fill the vacancy was issued in May 1647, but there is no record of a new election ever having taken place

[9] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Vernon, Edward" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 27 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

[10] Henry Swann was re-elected in 1818, but his election was voided on petition. No new writ was issued, and the seat remained vacant until the 1820 general election

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PROFILPELAJAR.COM

Penryn (UK Parliament constituency)

History

Franchise

The election of 1761

After the 1760s

Members of Parliament

MPs 1553–1629

MPs 1640–1832

Notes

References

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