Fowey (UK Parliament constituency)

Fowey was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1571 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

Fowey
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
1571–1832
Seats	Two

History

The borough consisted of the town of Fowey, a seaport and market town, and the neighbouring hamlet of Mixtow. Unlike many of the most notorious Cornish rotten boroughs which were enfranchised in Tudor times, Fowey had once been a town of reasonable size, and returned members to a national council in 1340, although it had to wait until 1571 for representation in Parliament.

Fowey was a feudal tenure of the Prince of Wales, and by a judgment of 1701 the right to vote was held to rest with "the Prince's tenants",^[1] which in practice was interpreted to include all the householders paying scot and lot; there were 331 voters in 1831. However, most of the property in the borough was owned by the Rashleigh family of nearby Menabilly, and in 1816 they and the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe shared the "patronage", each having considerable influence if not quite absolute power to choose one of the MPs.

In 1831, the borough had a population of 1,600, and 340 houses.

Members of Parliament

1571–1629

Parliament	First member	Second member
Parliament of 1571	Robert Petre	Thomas Cromwell
Parliament of 1572–1583	William Russell	Edward Harrington
Parliament of 1584–1585	Reginald Mohun	William Treffry
Parliament of 1586–1587		John Bonython
Parliament of 1588–1589	John Rashleigh	Arthur Atye
Parliament of 1593	William Killigrew	Samuel Lennard
Parliament of 1597–1598	John Rashleigh	Thomas Treffry
Parliament of 1601	Carew Raleigh	Sir William Courtney, junior
Parliament of 1604–1611	Henry Peter	Francis Vyvyan
Addled Parliament (1614)	Jonathan Rashleigh	Sir Edward Boys
Parliament of 1621–1622		John Treffry
Happy Parliament (1624–1625)	William Noy	Sir Robert Coke
Useless Parliament (1625)	Jonathan Rashleigh	Arthur Basset
Parliament of 1625–1626	William Murray
Parliament of 1628–1629	Robert Rashleigh	Sir Richard Grenville
No Parliament summoned 1629–1640

1640–1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
April 1640		Jonathan Rashleigh	Royalist		Edwin Rich
November 1640					Sir Richard Buller	Parliamentarian
November 1642				Buller died – seat vacant
January 1644	Rashleigh disabled from sitting – seat vacant
1646		Nicholas Gould			Gregory Clement
May 1652				Clement expelled[2] – seat vacant
1653	Fowey was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659		John Barton			Edward Herle
May 1659		Nicholas Gould		One seat vacant
April 1660		John Barton			Edward Herle
1661		Jonathan Rashleigh			John Rashleigh
1675		Jonathan Rashleigh
1679					John Treffry
1685		Bevil Granville
1689		Jonathan Rashleigh			Shadrach Vincent
1695		Thomas Vivian			Sir Bevil Granville
January 1701		John Williams			John Granville
December 1701					John Hicks
1702		George Granville	Tory
1708					Henry Vincent (junior)
1710		Viscount Dupplin	Tory
1712		Bernard Granville
1713		Jermyn Wyche	Tory
1715		Jonathan Elford	Tory
1719					Nicholas Vincent
1722		John Goodall	Tory
1725		William Bromley	Tory
January 1727					The Viscount FitzWilliam	Whig
August 1727		Jonathan Rashleigh	Tory
1734					John Hedges
1737					William Wardour
1746					Captain the Hon. George Edgcumbe	Whig
1761					Hon. Robert Boyle-Walsingham
1765		Philip Rashleigh	Tory
1768					James Modyford Heywood
1774					The Lord Shuldham	Whig
1784					John Grant	Tory
1786					Hon. Richard Edgcumbe[3]	Tory
1795					Sylvester Douglas	Tory
1796					Reginald Pole-Carew	Tory
1799					Edward Golding[4]	Tory
July 1802		Reginald Pole Carew	Tory
December 1802					Robert Wigram (senior)	Tory
1806					Robert Wigram (junior)	Tory
1812		William Rashleigh	Tory
1818		George Lucy	Tory		Hon. James Hamilton Stanhope
5 March 1819[5]	Seat vacant (death of Viscount Valletort)				Alexander Glynn Campbell	Tory
24 March 1819		Matthias Attwood[6]	Tory
May 1819		Viscount Valletort	Tory
1820					George Lucy	Tory
1826		Hon. Robert Henley	Tory
February 1830		Lord Brudenell	Tory
July 1830					John Cheesment Severn	Tory
1832	Constituency abolished

Notes

1. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland, 1816, Volume 3, page 206, quoted on page 316 note 1, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1957)
2. Clement was expelled from the house for immorality (for "lying with his maid" according to the wording of the motion)
3. Styled Viscount Valletort from August 1789
4. In 1802 Golding was also elected for Plympton Erle, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for Fowey
5. At the 1818 election Lucy and Stanhope were declared to have defeated Viscount Valletort and Alexander Glynn Campbell, but on petition the result was reversed. However, Valletort had died in the interim and a by-election was held to fill his seat
6. Attwood was initially declared to have defeated Valletort at the by-election, but the result was reversed on petition

References

• Cornwall portal

• 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)
• Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
• J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• 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 "F"