The 1768 British general election returned members to serve in the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
of the 13th
Parliament of Great Britain to be held, after the merger of the
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised ...
and the
Parliament of Scotland
The Parliament of Scotland ( sco, Pairlament o Scotland; gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba) was the legislature of the Kingdom of Scotland from the 13th century until 1707. The parliament evolved during the early 13th century from the king's council o ...
in 1707.
The election took place amid continuing shifts within politics which had occurred the accession of
George III
George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
in 1760. The
Tories
A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
who had long been in parliamentary opposition having not won an election since
1713
Events
January–March
* January 17 – Tuscarora War: Colonel James Moore leads the Carolina militia out of Albemarle County, North Carolina, in a second offensive against the Tuscarora. Heavy snows force the troops to take ref ...
had disintegrated with its former parliamentarians gravitating between the various Whig factions, the Ministry, or continued political independence as a Country Gentleman. No Tory party existed at this point, though the label of Tory was occasionally used as a political insult by opposition groups against the government. Since the last general election the
Whigs had lost cohesion and had split into various factions aligned with leading political figures. The leading figures around the period of the prior election, namely the
Earl of Bute
Marquess of the County of Bute, shortened in general usage to Marquess of Bute, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1796 for John Stuart, 4th Earl of Bute.
Family history
John Stuart was the member of a family that ...
, the
Duke of Newcastle
Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle ...
and the
Earl of Chatham
Earl of Chatham, of Chatham in the County of Kent, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1766 for William Pitt the Elder on his appointment as Lord Privy Seal, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Pitt, of Burto ...
, were all retiring from political life for various reasons. While Chatham remained the nominal figurehead leader of the Ministry, the administration was centred on the First Lord of the Treasury; the
Duke of Grafton
Duke of Grafton is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1675 by Charles II of England for Henry FitzRoy, his second illegitimate son by the Duchess of Cleveland. The most notable duke of Grafton was Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke ...
, and his leader in the commons;
Lord North
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...
.
The election took place during a lull in political conflict, with there being a lack of any real political debate over policy or principle between the main factions. The major opposition factions, the
Rockingham Whigs
The Rockingham Whigs (or Rockinghamites) in 18th century British politics were a faction of the Whigs led by Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham, from about 1762 until his death in 1782. The Rockingham Whigs briefly held power fr ...
under the
Marquess of Rockingham
Marquess of Rockingham, in the County of Northampton, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1746 for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Earl of Malton. The Watson family descended from Lewis Watson, Member of Parliament f ...
and the
Grenvillites under
George Grenville
George Grenville (14 October 1712 – 13 November 1770) was a British Whig statesman who rose to the position of Prime Minister of Great Britain. Grenville was born into an influential political family and first entered Parliament in 1741 as an ...
owed their origins and strength to the periods when their respective leaders had led Ministries in the early-to-mid part of the decade.
Owing to these conditions the exact makeup of the new
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
was unclear, though estimates suggest that the opposition gained slightly on the Ministry in the months immediately after the election. Potentially the most important part of the election was the election of the
radical John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he f ...
in the metropolitan constituency of
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
. Wilkes's election triggered a
major political crisis, and marked the beginning of political radicalism in Britain.
Background
During the lifetime of the 12th Parliament of Great Britain five men held office as
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...
leading to the description of the period as one of ministerial instability. By 1766 the successive ministries of Newcastle, Bute, Grenville and Rockingham had collapsed, resulting in the King, George III appointed William Pitt, subsequently created the
Earl of Chatham
Earl of Chatham, of Chatham in the County of Kent, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1766 for William Pitt the Elder on his appointment as Lord Privy Seal, along with the subsidiary title Viscount Pitt, of Burto ...
as Prime Minister. George III in commissioning Chatham to form an administration had sought to find a stable Administration which would command the confidence of both the Crown and Parliament, something that Chatham appeared to possess unlike his two immediate predecessors. Despite enjoying the confidence of the Crown, Parliamentary goodwill, and genuine popularity for his role during the
Seven Years' War
The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...
, Chatham had squandered these opportunities amid poor health resulting in his First Lord, Grafton, taking on increasing responsibilities within government, despite his own reluctance to hold Ministerial power.
By 1767 Chatham had increasingly alienated the hitherto cordial Rockinghamites through his dismissal of
Lord Edgcumbe as
Treasurer of the Household
The Treasurer of the Household is a member of the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom. The position is usually held by one of the government deputy Chief Whips in the House of Commons. The current holder of the office is Mar ...
. While some Rockinghamites, namely
Henry Seymour Conway
Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (1721 – 9 July 1795) was a British general and statesman. A brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford, and cousin of Horace Walpole, he began his military career in the War of the Austrian Succession. He ...
remained part of the Ministry, many others who did not hold cabinet-level offices resigned their positions in response. This, coupled with the replacement of these individuals by individuals formerly close to Bute assisted in increasing the unpopularity of the Ministry. To further complicate matters the Ministry was divided over what would become the
Townshend Duties, proposed by
Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend in relation to the American colonies. Chatham, who was sympathetic to the American colonists and their concerns, suffered a nervous breakdown in early 1767, prompting Grafton to assume increasing levels of authority within the government.
In response the opposition factions had moved to form a union among themselves which only further amplified the problems of the Ministry. After unsuccessful negotiations between the Ministry and the Rockinghamites, the Bedfordites joined the Ministry with several Bedfordites, namely
Lord Gower,
Viscount Weymouth and the
Earl of Hillsborough becoming members of the cabinet. Over the course of the summer of 1767 Conway was gradually superseded as the government's Commons leader by Townshend who appeared in the political ascendant until his premature death in September 1767. He was ultimately replaced by
Lord North
Frederick North, 2nd Earl of Guilford (13 April 17325 August 1792), better known by his courtesy title Lord North, which he used from 1752 to 1790, was 12th Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1770 to 1782. He led Great Britain through most o ...
who became increasingly prominent within the Ministry. By this point a general election was increasingly on the horizon resulting in numerous Independent Members of Parliament reducing their attendance, while affording opposition MPs the opportunity to raise popular political questions ahead of facing their electors. Parliament ultimately dissolved on 11 March 1768 ahead of the general election.
Parties before election
The size and strength of Parliamentary factions during the lifetime of the 12th Parliament of Great Britain were rather fluid. The 1761 general election had returned a sizable Whig majority with the opposition formed by a cohort of over 100 Tories and a number of malcontent Independent Whigs notably including
Francis Dashwood and
Lord Strange. While the exact point of the demise of the Tory party is debated among historians of 18th-century politics, it is clear that by the end of the Parliamentary term no Tory party existed. While several dozen Tories did remain in the Commons even as late as the early 19th-century, their number gradually dwindled and no coherent unified Tory 'party' can be argued to have existed after the 1761 general election. By the time of the Chatham Administration it was clear that politics was formed along factional rather than party lines. An indication of the strength and state of parties in the period before the election is indicated in parliamentary lists created by Rockingham in November 1766, Townshend in January 1767, and Newcastle in March 1767. These lists differ greatly in various aspects especially among the classification of Independent Country Gentlemen ex-Tories, though the lists do demonstrate that the Ministry held around 220 seats, the Opposition factions around 150, while around 180 Members were Independents of varying degrees.
Course of the election
The general election was held over a period between 16 March 1768 and 6 May 1768. During this period elections did not take place at the same time in every constituency. The returning officer in each county or
parliamentary borough fixed the precise date (see
hustings
A husting originally referred to a native Germanic governing assembly, the thing. By metonymy, the term may now refer to any event (such as debates or speeches) during an election campaign where one or more of the candidates are present.
Devel ...
for details of the conduct of the elections). Parliamentary oppositions during this period never had a significant chance of winning power outright at a general election where the government's patronage and ability to hand out sinecure appointments and pensions were enough to maintain power. Indeed during this period no government was ever defeated for re-election. Little material exists for the Ministry's activities with Grafton's papers being relatively bare, and no papers relating to the secret service accounts or those of the government's election agents have been found to date.
Despite the clear advantage afforded to the Ministry, the inertness of Grafton ensured that the election in various constituencies was far more competitive that it realistically should have been. This was seen in various constituencies where the Treasury nominally held significant influence but due to Grafton's inaction, Lord Newcastle was able to maintain a hold on these seats in favour of the Rockingham Whigs at the general election. The increasing competitiveness of the election was demonstrated by the fact that 83 constituencies went to the polls, an increase of 30 on the figure from 1761. 8 contests occurred in English county constituencies, 60 in English borough constituencies of varying sizes, 1 at
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
, 5 in Welsh constituencies, and 9 in Scottish seats. This was therefore among the most competitive general elections of the period with borough managers being seen to have increasingly difficult times managing smaller boroughs against the attacks of outsiders and insurgent candidates.
Notable contests
Essex
The contest in
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...
was still fought along nominal Tory and Whig partisan lines, as
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
noted 'on the business of a century ago'. Ancestral partisan alignments had persisted to the point of fossilization, though until a decade prior the constituency had been a Tory stronghold. At a by-election in 1759 the Essex Whigs had been so weak that they had resolved to run a Tory under the Whig label. The confusion of the period of Ministerial instability is reflected in a by-election in 1763 when the local Tories ran
John Conyers and the Whigs ran
John Luther
This is a list of fictional characters in the British psychological crime drama television series ''Luther'', its international remakes and film continuation.
Overview
Main characters John Luther
Detective Chief Inspector John Luther, p ...
who both professed themselves to be supporters of the Grenvillite faction. At the by-election Luther narrowly prevailed over Conyers by a margin of just over one-hundred votes. The contest in 1768 was confusing and featured a contest between supporters of the government, Luther and the ex-Tory
Sir William Maynard who were opposed by the remnants of the local Tories, who ran Jacobin Houblon, Jr. and Eliab Harvey as their candidates for the by-election. At the poll the Tory candidates were soundly defeated with local landlord influences assisting the pro-government Essex Whigs in finally defeating the old Tory interest in the constituency.
City of London
The
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...
was among the most politically conscious constituencies in the nation with a sizable franchise and its own elective local government system that enabled the constituency to be particularly susceptible to political movements. Politics had a class-element to an extent, with larger merchants leaning towards the government, while smaller merchants, artisans, crafters and shopkeepers who lacked government financial connections had traditionally supported local 'Patriot'
Opposition Whigs and Tories. The constituency's four seats had been won by nominal Tories of varying stripes in 1761: the Pittite and increasingly prominent radical
William Beckford, fellow Pitt supporter
Richard Glyn, Ministerial-leaning
Thomas Harley, and
Robert Ladbroke
Sir Robert Ladbroke (1713 – 31 October 1773) was an English politician who sat in the British House of Commons, House of Commons from 1754 to 1770. He was Lord Mayor of London in 1747.
Ladbroke was a member of a Warwickshire family who set ...
, who appealed to all interests in the constituency out of a principle of 'independence'. Pitt had enjoyed considerable support in the City prior to his resignation from the government in 1761 and his failure to cultivate support. Opposition to government economic policies had enable the slow increase in anti-government and 'radical' political sympathies among voters.
The contest in 1768 saw all four incumbents run for re-election, joined by American merchant and Rockinghamite
Barlow Trecothick
Barlow Trecothick ( – 28 May 1775) was a City of London merchant brought up in the colonial Province of Massachusetts Bay who became one of the Members of Parliament for the City of London and was Lord Mayor of London in 1770.
Early life
Trec ...
, independent John Paterson, and the last minute bid by radical
John Wilkes
John Wilkes (17 October 1725 – 26 December 1797) was an English radical journalist and politician, as well as a magistrate, essayist and soldier. He was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he f ...
who had recently returned from exile in France. Wilkes had neither a programme nor a party and was unable to gain a foothold during the election. Ultimately Harley, Ladbroke and Beckford were easily returned, while Glyn was narrowly defeated by Trecothick. Wilkes polled just over a thousand votes in this constituency. Radicalism would increasingly become more prominent in the constituency with none of the four incumbents standing for re-election in 1774 (Beckford and Ladbroke were dead, Trecothick retired and Harley contested
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthsh ...
instead) paving the way for anti-government radicals to win all four seats.
Middlesex
![The Brentford Sweepstakes high](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/The_Brentford_Sweepstakes_high.png)
The most prominent constituency contest of the election was that in
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbour ...
. The constituency had since a 1750 by-election been held as a compromise between the local Tories and Whigs by Whig
William Beauchamp-Proctor and Tory
George Cooke. The two had held their seats without a contest at the 1754 and 1761 general elections with the assumption that this tranquility would likely be maintained in the coming 1768 election. In February 1768 radical John Wilkes had returned from his self-imposed exile in France where he had remained for four years after being convinced for libel and blasphemy. Wilkes' financial situation had become desperate necessitating him to return to reclaim a seat at Westminster. Wilkes' attempt to win one of the four seats in the City of London had fallen considerably short several days prior. Undeterred he opted to campaign in the neighbouring Middlesex county seat, challenging the Courtier Whig Beauchamp-Proctor and the ailing, gout-ridden Chathamite Cooke. With around two-thousand electors turning out to vote, Wilkes topped the poll and unseated Beauchamp-Proctor, being returned with Cooke. Some residual Tory support may explain Wilkes' success with the ''St. James Chronicle'' noting that Wilkes and Cooke polled well in the Tory east of the constituency where small freeholders were prevalent. Wilkes' support from the old Tory Half Moon Club and the Independent Electors of Westminster, in addition to his employing of blue ribbons for his campaign, are telling. Regardless of the psephological points, Wilkes had polled strongly, much to the chagrin of prominent political figures. As the historian
John Cannon noted:
"The main reason for Wilkes’s success in Middlesex is that he had, either by accident or design, hit on the one county in the kingdom where his campaign might produce a response. Middlesex was by far the most urbanised of all the counties, and Wilkes’s victory demonstrated the extent to which Middlesex was dominated by London. The voting strength of the hundred of Ossulstone, in which the urban development had taken place, was more than twice that of the other five hundreds combined. Moreover, a very large proportion of the freeholders of Middlesex were in business. The London voters included not only merchants, brewers, attorneys, distillers, and manufacturers, but also what contemporaries called ‘the little freeholders’—cheese-mongers, upholsterers, grocers, booksellers, weavers, ironmongers, undertakers, apothecaries, plumbers, drapers, watchmakers, turners, cashiers, and carpenters. These shopkeepers and small tradesmen provided the bulk of Wilkes’s following: they were less subject to intimidation and control than the tenant farmers in the other county constituencies."
Wilkes' election prompted the Ministry to unseat him only for Wilkes to win a series of three by-elections, until finally the Ministry controversially sat a rival,
Henry Luttrell as the new Member of Parliament instead.
Oxford University
The constituency where the traditional party alignments persisted the longest and most strongly was
Oxford University
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to th ...
. The constituency had been resolutely Tory in its politics since before the Hanoverian succession and jealously guarded its political independence and Tory identity, leading
Horace Walpole to brand Oxfordshire 'a little Kingdom of
Jacobitism
, war =
, image = Prince James Francis Edward Stuart by Louis Gabriel Blanchet.jpg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = James Francis Edward Stuart, Jacobite claimant between 1701 and 1766
, active ...
'. Since a 1762 by-election the representation of the constituency had been shared by two old Tories,
William Bagot and
Roger Newdigate, who both enjoyed prior Parliamentary experience before being returned by the University. The University Whigs were well aware that the stood little chance of wrestling control of the seat from the Tories except if the Tory interest was divided. An opportunity for a contest emerged after Bagot's death in spring 1768. The Whigs desired to run
Charles Jenkinson, a former close ally of Bute as their candidate. Jenkinson hailed from a Tory family but had played a role in the infamous
Oxfordshire election of 1754 which had soured Tories considerably towards him. The Tory meanwhile returned
William Dolben as a stopgap MP until the general election, Dolben would meanwhile win office in the general election in
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by
two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...
. At the general election the popular and respected Newdigate's position was secure, while there was a genuine contest for the second seat. The Tories were initially split between the candidacies of
Amersham (UK Parliament constituency)
Amersham, often spelt as Agmondesham, was a constituency of the House of Commons of England until 1707, then in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and finally in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1 ...
MP
William Drake, Sr. and squire
Francis Page. Yet the fear of a split and the victory of Jenkinson resolved them to unify behind Page. The Tories were bolstered by a fear that a victory by a pro-government candidate, namely Jenkinson would result in the constituency losing its independence and become a government borough. Additional candidates included
Thomas Fitzmaurice and the jurist
George Hay whose quixotic bid mystified many and attracted little support. Fitzmaurice, shortly before polling, dropped out and backed Page after being assured of support at a future election. Ultimately the Tory interest would hold firm at the University with Newdigate and Page being easily returned over Jenkinson and Hay.
Results
The overall result of the general election remains unclear to historians owing to the confused nature of politics and partisanship during the 1760s. Nevertheless some precise electoral facts are clear. 167 Members of Parliament were returned who had not formerly sat in Parliament. Of these Members during their first years in office, they tended to lean towards the Opposition as seen by their stances with relation to the Middlesex election affair. Yet over the course of the Parliamentary term this preference began to wear off resulting in the Ministry, especially after Lord North assumed its leadership in 1770; being assured of the confidence of the Commons on most matters. That Grafton's ineptitude cost the Ministry various winnable seats and extra support in Parliament is demonstrated by the clear fact that the Opposition, be it factional or Independent MPs, increased in size to some degree as a result of the 1768 general election. Figures for several of the factions and tendencies in the Commons are available. Around 140 factional MPs are estimated to have been returned. Of this figure it is known that the Rockinghamites increased their number of MPs from 54 to 57. The Grenvillites entered the election with 41 MPs and incurred nineteen loses and gained ten seats, winning them 31 seats. The Bedfordites according to an overview of their MPs held around 23 seats prior to the election and ultimately won around 20 seats. While no coherent Tory party remained of the Tories elected in 1761 or at by-elections during the Parliament, 53 were re-elected, though of these MPs, 28 became regular Opposition voters, 14 'pure' Independents, 26 government-leaning 'Hopeful' Independents, 4 Ministerialists, 2 Grenvillites, and 1 Bedfordite. With regards to the overall figure of MPs aligned with the Ministry this is generally unclear, though the May 1769 division to seat Luttrell as the Member for Middlesex, the Ministry mustered 221 votes, which should be judged as the core of the Ministry's support, not including the aforementioned 'Hopeful' Independents who could be expected to lean in the Ministry's favour.
[Brooke, Chatham, pp. 350-53, Macmillan, (1958)]
See also
*
List of parliaments of Great Britain
This is a listing of sessions of the Parliament of Great Britain, tabulated with the elections to the House of Commons of Great Britain for each session, and the list of members of the House.
The sessions are numbered from the formation of the ...
*
List of MPs elected in the British general election, 1768
Notes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
{{British elections (1707-1800)
1768 in politics
General election
1768
Events
January–March
* January 9 – Philip Astley stages the first modern circus, with acrobats on galloping horses, in London.
* February 11 – Samuel Adams's circular letter is issued by the Massachusetts House o ...