Saltash, sometimes called Essa, 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 electorate ...
" in
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 the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
which returned two
Members of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
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. T ...
in the
English 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 suprem ...
from 1552 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
Saltash
Saltash (Cornish: Essa) is a town and civil parish in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It had a population of 16,184 in 2011 census. Saltash faces the city of Plymouth over the River Tamar and is popularly known as "the Gateway to Corn ...
, a market town facing
Plymouth and
Devonport across the
Tamar estuary
Tamar may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media
* ''Tamar'' (album), by Tamar Braxton, 2000
* ''Tamar'' (novel), by Mal Peet, 2005
* ''Tamar'' (poem), an epic poem by Robinson Jeffers
People
* Tamar (name), including a list of people with ...
, and the inhabitants by 1831 were mainly fishermen or Devonport dockworkers. Like most of the
Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the
Tudor period
The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began wit ...
, it was a rotten borough from the start.
Saltash was a
burgage
Burgage is a medieval land term used in Great Britain and Ireland, well established by the 13th century.
A burgage was a town ("borough" or "burgh") rental property (to use modern terms), owned by a king or lord. The property ("burgage tenement ...
borough, meaning that the right to vote rested with the tenants of certain specified properties. For a long period in the 18th century, there was a contest for control of the borough between the government and the Buller family of
Morval, depending partly on legal uncertainties over the precise number and identity of the burgage properties to which votes were attached. In the 1760s it was considered an entirely secure Admiralty borough, where the naval influence could sway all the voters,
[Page 302, ]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) but by 1831 the Bullers owned all the tenancies and considered themselves the patrons.
In 1831, the borough had a population of 1,637, and 245 houses.
Members of Parliament
MPs 1547–1629
MPs 1640–1832
References
Sources
*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)
*
*{{Rayment-hc, s, 2, date=March 2012
Parliamentary constituencies in Cornwall (historic)
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1552
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832
Rotten boroughs