Fowey was a

rotten borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to 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. ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and later

British Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative supremacy ...

from 1571 to 1832, when it was abolished by the

Great Reform Act The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...

History

The borough consisted of the town of

Fowey Fowey ( ; kw, Fowydh, meaning 'Beech Trees') is a port town and civil parish at the mouth of the River Fowey in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town has been in existence since well before the Norman invasion, with the local ch ...

, a seaport and market town, and the neighbouring hamlet of

Mixtow Mixtow is a hamlet in the Lanteglos-by-Fowey parish in south east Cornwall Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of t ...

. 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 Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

, and by a judgment of 1701 the right to vote was held to rest with "the Prince's tenants",Oldfield, ''The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland'', 1816, Volume 3, page 206, quoted on page 316 note 1,

Lewis Namier Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' (1929), ''England in the Age of the Ameri ...

, ''

The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' was a book written by Lewis Namier. At the time of its first publication in 1929 it caused a historiographical revolution in understanding the 18th century by challenging the Whig view ...

'' (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1957) which in practice was interpreted to include all the householders paying

scot and lot Scot and lot is a phrase common in the records of English, Welsh and Irish medieval boroughs, referring to local rights and obligations. The term ''scot'' comes from the Old English word ''sceat'', an ordinary coin in Anglo-Saxon times, equivalen ...

; there were 331 voters in 1831. However, most of the property in the borough was owned by the

Rashleigh family Rashleigh is a surname of a prominent family from Devon and Cornwall in England, which originated in the 14th century or before at the estate of Rashleigh in the parish of Wembworthy, Devon. The principal branches were: *Rashleigh of Rashleigh, ...

of nearby

Menabilly Menabilly ( kw, Men Ebeli, meaning ''stone of colts'') is a historic estate on the south coast of Cornwall, England, situated within the parish of Tywardreath on the Gribben peninsula about west of Fowey. It has been the seat of the Rashle ...

, and in 1816 they and the

Earl of Mount Edgcumbe Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1789 for George Edgcumbe, 3rd Baron Edgcumbe. This branch of the Edgcumbe family descends from Sir Piers Edgcumbe of Cotehele in Cornwall (descended from the ...

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

1640–1832

Notes

References

* 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) * * {{Rayment-hc, f, date=March 2012 Parliamentary constituencies in Cornwall (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1572 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832 Rotten boroughs Fowey