St Mawes was a rotten borough in Cornwall, England. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1562 to 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom until it was abolished by the Great Reform Act in 1832.
History The borough consisted of the manor of St Mawes, a decayed fishing port and market town in the west of Cornwall. Like most of the Cornish boroughs enfranchised or re-enfranchised during the Tudor period, it was a rotten borough from the start.
The right to vote rested with the portreeve and "resident burgesses or free tenants", making it essentially a scot and lot borough (there were 87 voters in 1831), but the control of the "patron" was entirely secure. In practice the patron always worked in close collusion with the Crown, and the members returned were generally court nominees throughout the borough's existence. In the 1760s the Boscawen family (the Viscounts Falmouth) were considered to have the main influence over the choice of one memberPage 145, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1957) and Robert Nugent over the other;Page 147, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1957) by the time of the Great Reform Act, the patronage had passed to the Marquess of Buckingham.
In 1831, the borough had a population of 459, and 95 houses.
Members of Parliament
1562–1629 ParliamentFirst memberSecond memberParliament of 1563–1567Oliver CarminowEdmund SextonParliament of 1571William FleetwoodIsrael AmiceParliament of 1572–1581Rowland HindGeoffrey GatesParliament of 1584–1585William OnslowChristopher SouthouseParliament of 1586–1587Sampson LennardThomas ChalonerParliament of 1588–1589John PottsWalter CopeParliament of 1593Nicholas FullerHenry VincentParliament of 1597–1598Michael VyvyanRichard OrverParliament of 1601Robert KilligrewRalph HareParliament of 1604–1611Dudley CarletonSir John SpeccotAddled Parliament (1614)Francis VyvyanSir Nicholas SmithParliament of 1621–1622Edward WrightingtonWilliam HockmoreHappy Parliament (1624–1625)John ArundellWilliam HockmoreUseless Parliament (1625) Sir James FullertonNathaniel TomkinsParliament of 1625–1626 Sir Henry CareyWilliam CarrParliament of 1628–1629Thomas CareyHannibal VyvyanNo Parliament summoned 1629–1640
1640–1832
YearFirst memberFirst partySecond memberSecond partyApril 1640 Dr George Parry RoyalistLord SheffieldParliamentarian November 1640 Richard EriseyParliamentarian January 1644Parry disabled from sitting – seat vacant1647William PriestleyDecember 1648Priestley and Erisey excluded in Pride's Purge – both seats vacant1653St Mawes was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the ProtectorateJanuary 1659 William TredenhamJohn Lampen"Lampen,John, 1s John, of Petherdey, Cornwall, arm. Magdalen Hall, matric. 14 March 1633/4, aged 18; of Padreda, sheriff of Cornwall 1650 ; M.P. St Mawes 1659; his will dated April 1660, proved 25 May 1661. "Will of John Lampen of Linkinhorne, Cornwall" See Foster's Parliamentary Dictionary"; s:Alumni Oxonienses: the Members of the University of Oxford, 1715-1886/Lampen, John; and John Lampen has his poll tax listed as £10May 1659Not represented in the restored RumpApril 1660 Sir William Tredenham Arthur Spry 1663 Sir Richard Vyvyan 1665 Joseph Tredenham February 1679 Sidney Godolphin Henry Seymour September 1679 Sir Joseph Tredenham 1685 Sir Peter Prideaux 1689 Sir Joseph Tredenham March 1690 Henry Seymour Portman April 1690 John Tredenham 1695 Seymour Tredenham 1696 Henry Seymour Portman 1698 Sir Joseph Tredenham 1705 Francis Godfrey 1707 John Tredenham 1710 Sir Richard Onslow Whig 1711 John Anstis 1713 Edward Rolt Francis Scobell Tory 1715 William Lowndes John Chetwynd 1722 Sidney Godolphin Samuel Travers 1726 Samuel Molyneux 1727 Henry Vane Whig John KnightKnight was also elected for Sudbury, which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Mawes Whig 1728 William East 1734 Richard Plumer 1741 Robert NugentNugent was re-elected in 1715, but had also been elected for Bristol, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for St Mawes James Douglas 1747 The Lord Sundon 1753 Sir Thomas Clavering April 1754 Henry Seymour Conway WhigDecember 1754 James NewshamTook the surname Craggs from 1756 1761 Edmund Nugent Richard Hussey 1768 George Boscawen 1770 Michael Byrne 1772 James Edward Colleton 1774 Viscount ClareCreated The Earl Nugent (in the Peerage of Ireland) in 1776 Hugh Boscawen 1784 (Sir) William YoungSucceeded to his father's baronetcy in 1788 Tory 1790 Colonel John Graves Simcoe 1792 Thomas Calvert 1795 William Drummond May 1796 George NugentNugent was also elected for Buckingham, which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Mawes October 1796 Jeremiah Crutchley 1802 William Windham Tory 1806 Sir John NewportNewport was also elected for Waterford, which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Mawes Whig Scrope Bernard ToryJanuary 1807 William Shipley July 1807 Viscount Ebrington Whig 1808 Earl Gower Whig 1809 Scrope Bernard-Morland Tory 1812 William Shipley 1813 Francis Horner Whig 1817 Joseph Phillimore Tory 1826 Sir Codrington Carrington Tory 1830 George Pigott Tory 1831 Sir Edward Sugden Tory1832 Constituency abolished
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. 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) Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847, Volume 3 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1850)