Grampound in Cornwall was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1826. It was represented by two Members of Parliament.

History

Grampound's market was on a Saturday and the town had a glove factory. Grampound was created a Borough by a charter of King Edward VI with a Mayor, eight Aldermen, a Recorder, and a Town Clerk. In 1547 it sent members to Parliament for the first time, one of a number of rotten boroughs in Cornwall established during the Tudor period.

Boundaries

The constituency was a Parliamentary borough in Cornwall, covering Grampound, a market town 8 mi from Truro on the River Fal.

Franchise

The franchise for the borough was in the hands of Mayor, Recorder, Aldermen and any Freemen created by the council. In 1816, T. H. B. Oldfield wrote that there were 42 voters in all. Given that the borough had 80 houses, this meant that the franchise was extended well into the working class. While several patrons (including the Earls of Mount Edgcumbe, Lord Eliot, Sir Christopher Hawkins and Basil Cochrane) attempted to exert their influence over the choice of members to serve Grampound, the electors were more interested in the monetary value of their vote. Oldfield wrote "The freemen of this borough have been known to boast of receiving three hundred guineas a man for their votes at one election." The voters were used to getting regular payments through the year and received special payments for events like sickness and funerals, with one historian comparing the arrangement to "general free insurance". So notorious and unmanageable did the borough become that Grampound became a byword for electoral corruption, and Edward Porritt noted its use was continuing in 1903.

Disfranchisement for corruption

Finally, after the return of two members in the 1818 general election was overturned by a petition alleging gross bribery, Lord John Russell moved to disfranchise Grampound and to transfer the two members to a new Parliamentary Borough of Leeds. The usual treatment for a borough which had perpetual bribery (as practiced in New Shoreham in 1770, Cricklade in 1782, Aylesbury in 1804 and East Retford in 1828) was to expand its boundaries and franchise into an area free of corruption but that was not possible in Grampound where the neighbouring towns were also parliamentary boroughs and increasing the electorate would simply increase the pool of potential bribed voters. After a delay caused by the accession of King George IV and the scandal of Queen Caroline's return and the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820, Russell introduced a Bill in January 1821. The suggestion of Leeds as a new borough met with resistance because of the large number of working class voters who would be enfranchised, and when an amendment to raise the qualification was passed, Russell withdrew his Bill; however, the mover of the amendment introduced his own. The House of Lords amended the Bill to give the two members instead to the county of Yorkshire, an amendment accepted and which eventually went into law. Grampound was disfranchised by 1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. 47, with royal assent on 8 June 1821. The two members who had been returned in the 1820 general election, John Innes and Alexander Robertson, retained their seats under the Act until the end of the Parliament, with a provision that if they should die or resign their seats, then replacements would be elected by the Yorkshire constituency rather than Grampound. They both retained their seats until the dissolution of Parliament in 1826, when Grampound ceased to exist.

Members of Parliament

1547–1629

1640–1821

Elections

As with most boroughs in the unreformed House of Commons, Grampound was uncontested at most elections. The only contested elections after 1660 were: