Tregony (constituency)
Former parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tregony was a rotten borough in Cornwall first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295. It continuously returned two Members of Parliament to the English, and later British, Parliament from 1562[1] to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
| Tregony | |
|---|---|
| Former borough constituency for the House of Commons | |
| 1562–1832 | |
| Seats | Two |
History
The borough consisted of the town of Tregony. Like most Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the Tudor period, it was a settlement of little initial importance or wealth. It was not incorporated as a municipal borough until sixty years after it began to return members to Parliament in 1563.
Tregony was a potwalloper borough, meaning every male householder with a separate fireplace capable of boiling a pot was entitled to vote. The apparently democratic nature of this arrangement was a delusion in a borough as small and poor as Tregony, where the residents could not afford to defy their landlord who regarded their vote as a means of income. Many of the houses in the borough were built purely for political purposes, and the borough itself was bought and sold for its political value on numerous occasions. In the 1760s, Viscount Falmouth (head of the Boscawen family) influenced the nomination to one of the two seats[2] and William Trevanion the other;[3] later the Earl of Darlington controlled both seats, together with others in Cornwall, but by the time of the Great Reform Act, the patronage had been transferred again to James Adam Gordon.
In 1831, the borough's population was 1,127, and 234 houses. Nevertheless, because of the wide franchise it had a comparatively large electorate for the time, numbering between 260 and 300 voters.
Members of Parliament
MPs 1559–1629
| Parliament | First member | Second member | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parliament of 1558–9 | Peter Osborne | Adrian Poynings | |
| Parliament of 1563–1567 | Edward Ameredith | Giles Laurence | |
| Parliament of 1571 | Sir Edward Hastings | Robert Dormer | |
| Parliament of 1572–1581 | William Knollys | Peter Wentworth | |
| Parliament of 1584–1585 | Sir John St Leger | Richard Grafton | |
| Parliament of 1586–1587 | Richard Trevanion | Oliver Carminowe | |
| Parliament of 1588–1589 | Richard Penkevell | Christopher Walker | |
| Parliament of 1593 | John Snow | Arnold Oldisworth | |
| Parliament of 1597–1598 | Sir Edward Denny | Henry Birde | |
| Parliament of 1601 | Lewis Darte | Thomas Trevor | |
| Parliament of 1604–1611 | Henry Pomeroy | Richard Garveigh | |
| Addled Parliament (1614) | William Hakewill | Thomas Malet | |
| Parliament of 1621–1622 | |||
| Happy Parliament (1624–1625) | Peter Specott | Ambrose Manaton | |
| Useless Parliament (1625) | Sir Henry Carey | Sebastian Goode | |
| Parliament of 1625–1626 | Thomas Carey | Sir Robert Killigrew | |
| Parliament of 1628–1629 | Francis Rous | Sir John Arundell | |
| No Parliament summoned 1629–1640 | |||
