Gatton (UK Parliament constituency)

Gatton
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1450–1832
Seats	Two
Replaced by	East Surrey

Gatton was a parliamentary borough in Surrey, one of the most notorious of all the rotten boroughs. It elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1450 until 1832, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act. ^[1] Around the time of that Act it was often held up by reformers as the epitome of what was wrong with the unreformed system.

History

The borough consisted of part of the parish of Gatton, near Reigate, between London and Brighton. It included the manor and estate of Gatton Park. Gatton was no more than a village, with a population in 1831 of 146, and 23 houses of which as few as six may have been within the borough.

Robert Mayne (1724–1782), MP for Upper Gatton, by Joshua Reynolds.

The right to vote was extended to all freeholders and inhabitants paying scot and lot; but this apparently wide franchise was normally meaningless in tiny Gatton: there were only 7 qualified voters in 1831, and the number had sometimes fallen as low as two. ^[2] This position had existed long before the 19th century: Gatton was one of the first of the English boroughs to come under the total dominance of a "patron": in the reign of Henry VIII, when Gatton's representation was only a century old, Sir Roger Copley described himself as "its burgess and only inhabitant". In these circumstances, the local landowners had no difficulty in maintaining absolute control, and for most of the 16th century it was the Copleys who held this power. However, the Copleys were Roman Catholics, and this caused difficulties in the later Elizabethan period: the head of the family, Thomas Copley, went into voluntary exile abroad, and when his wife and child returned to England after his death she was soon caught harbouring a Catholic priest. The Sheriff and Deputy Lieutenants of Surrey were directed by the Privy Council to ensure that Gatton made its choice free from any influence by Mrs Copley; the sheriff's precept for the election was directed not to the Lord of the Manor but to the parish constable; and it seems that between 1584 and 1621 the humble villagers of Gatton may have genuinely elected their MPs in their own right.

In the 1750s, Sir James Colebrooke (Lord of the Manor of Gatton) nominated for one seat ^[3] and the Rev John Tattersall (Lord of the Manor of nearby Upper Gatton) the other. In 1774, Sir William Mayne (later Lord Newhaven) bought both manors and therefore control of both seats; from 1786 onwards they changed hands several times more, ending in the hands of Sir Mark Wood by the turn of the century. The borough was sold again in 1830, at a reported price of £180,000, despite the prospect of disenfranchisement; in the same year, while the ownership of the borough was under the administration of a broker, one of its seats in the new Parliament was sold for £1,200.

The small edifice, known as the town hall, where the elections are said to have taken place can still be seen today. Most of the site of the former constituency is now occupied by The Royal Alexandra and Albert School. ^[4]

Contested election

Main article: 1803 Gatton by-election

Even though Gatton elections were entirely in the hands of the Lord of the Manor, there was a contested by-election on 24 January 1803. James Dashwood, one of the sitting members, was persuaded to resign to allow Philip Dundas (nephew of Pitt's ally Henry Dundas) to take a seat in Parliament. However, Joseph Clayton Jennings, a barrister who supported Parliamentary reform, arrived to contest the election together with a group of radical supporters. Jennings obtained one vote from a man claiming to be entitled to vote, but Dashwood (the returning officer) rejected it; hence Dundas was returned by 1 vote to nil. ^[5]

A garbled version of the 1803 by-election was included by Henry Stooks Smith in The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847, as the supposed story of a by-election in 1816, at which Sir Mark Wood, 2nd Baronet was returned. Stooks Smith wrote:

Mr Jennings was Sir Mark Wood's butler. There were only three voters, Sir Mark, his son, and Jennings. The son was away and Jennings and his master quarrelled upon which Jennings refused to second the son and proposed himself. To get a seconder for the son, Sir Mark had to second Jennings, and it was ultimately arranged, and the vote of Sir Mark alone given. This was the only contest within memory. ^[6]

The History of Parliament notes that this story "has not been confirmed". ^[5] Gatton's representation was abolished by the Reform Act in 1832.

Members of Parliament

1510–1640

Parliament	First member	Second member
1510–1523	No names known [7]
1529	John Guildford	?William Saunders [7]
1536	?
1539	?
1542	Thomas Saunders	Thomas Bishop [7]
1545	Edward Bellingham [8]	Roger Heigham [7]
1547	Richard Shelley	John Tingleden, died and replaced by Jan 1552 by Thomas Guildford [7]
1553 (Mar)	Richard Southwell alias Darcy	Leonard Dannett [7]
1553 (Oct)	Sir Thomas Cornwallis	Chidiock Paulet [7]
1554 (Apr)	Thomas Gatacre	Thomas Copley [7]
1554 (Nov)	William Wootton	Thomas Copley [7]
1555	Humphrey Moseley	Sir Henry Hussey [7]
1558	Thomas Copley	Thomas Norton [7]
1558–9	Thomas Copley	Thomas Farnham [9]
1562–3	Sir Robert Lane	Thomas Copley [9]
1571	Edmund Slyfield	Edward Whitton [9]
1572	Edmund Tilney	Roland Maylard [9]
1584	Francis Bacon, sat for Melcombe Regis and replaced by Edward Browne	Thomas Bishopp [9]
1586	Serjeant John Puckering	Edward Browne [9]
1588	Richard Browne	John Herbert [9]
1593	William Lane	George Buc [9]
1597	George Buc	Michael Hicks [9]
1601	Sir Matthew Browne	Richard Sondes [9]
1604–1611	Sir Thomas Gresham	Sir Nicholas Saunders
1614	Sir Thomas Gresham	Sir John Brooke
1621	Sir Thomas Gresham	Sir Thomas Bludder
1624	Sir Edmund Bowyer	Samuel Owfield
1625	Sir Charles Howard [10]	Thomas Crewe
1626	Sir Samuel Owfield	Sir Charles Howard [10]
1628	Sir Samuel Owfield	Sir Charles Howard [10]
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned

1640–1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
November 1640		Sir Samuel Owfield	Parliamentarian	Double return for second seat, not resolved until 1641
November 1641					Thomas Sandys	Parliamentarian
1644	Owfield died – seat left vacant
1645		William Owfield
December 1648	Sandys and Owfield excluded in Pride's Purge – both seats vacant
1653	Gatton was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659		Edward Bishe			Thomas Turgis
May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660		Sir Edmund Bowyer			Thomas Turgis
1661		William Owfield
1664		Sir Nicholas Carew
1685		Sir John Thompson, Bt
1696		George Evelyn
1698		Hon. Maurice Thompson
1702					Thomas Onslow
1705		Sir George Newland			Paul Docminique
1710		William Newland
1735					Charles Docminique
1738		Professor George Newland
1745					Paul Humphrey
1749		Charles Knowles
1751					(Sir) James Colebrooke [11]
1752		William Bateman
1754		Thomas Brand
1761					Lieutenant-Colonel Edward Harvey
1768		Hon. John Damer			Joseph Martin
October 1774		Sir William Mayne [12]			Robert Scott [13]
December 1774		Robert Mayne			William Adam
1780					The Lord Newhaven
1782		Maurice Lloyd
1787		James Fraser
1790		John Nesbitt			William Currie
May 1796		John Petrie			Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Bt [14]
November 1796					John Heathcote
1799					(Sir) Walter Stirling [15]
1800		James Du Pre
1802		Sir Mark Wood, Bt			James Dashwood
1803					Philip Dundas
1805					William Garrow
1806					James Athol Wood
1807					George Bellas Greenough
1812					William Congreve
1816		Sir Mark Wood, Bt [16]	Tory
1818		Abel Rous Dottin			John Fleming
1820		Jesse Watts-Russell			Thomas Divett
1826		William Scott			Michael Prendergast
Mar 1830		Joseph Neeld
July 1830		John Shelley			John Thomas Hope	Tory
1831		Viscount Pollington			Anthony John Ashley
1832	Constituency abolished

Notes

1. "Parishes - Gatton". British History Online. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
2. Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)
3. Page 146, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957)
4. Gatton Foundation .
5. 1 2 History of Parliament 1790–1820, vol II p 380-1
6. Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847 (Leeds, 1844–1847), vol III p 73.
7. "History of Parliament" . Retrieved 12 October 2011.
8. Lyons, Mary Ann. "Bellingham, Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2057.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
9. "History of Parliament" . Retrieved 12 October 2011.
10. Davidson, Alan; Coates, Ben (2010). "Member biography, Charles Howard". The History of Parliament. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 5 April 2013.
11. Created a baronet, October 1759
12. Mayne was also elected for Canterbury, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Gatton in this Parliament
13. Scott was also elected for Wootton Basset, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Gatton
14. Heathcote was also elected for Lincolnshire, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Gatton
15. Created a baronet, December 1800
16. Wood replaced Congreve

References

• Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807)
• Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (London: Hutchinson, 1973)
• 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)
• 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)
• Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847 (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "G" (part 1)