Coleraine

Borough

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820, ed. R. Thorne, 1986
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Background Information

Right of Election:

in the freemen

Number of voters:

37 in 1784 rising to 52 in 1831

Population:

(1831): 5,752

Elections

DateCandidate
1801WALTER JONES
26 July 1802WALTER JONES
13 Dec. 1806SIR GEORGE FITZGERALD HILL, Bt.
4 Feb. 1807 WALTER JONES vice Hill, chose to sit for Londonderry
16 May 1807WALTER JONES
26 June 1809 JOHN POO BERESFORD vice Jones, vacated his seat
17 Oct. 1812LORD GEORGE THOMAS BERESFORD
10 June 1814 (SIR) JOHN POO BERESFORD vice Beresford, vacated his seat
30 June 1818(SIR) JOHN POO BERESFORD

Main Article

Coleraine was the property of the London Society, whose agent was John Claudius Beresford*, and by 1799 his cousin Lord Waterford had ‘purchased’ the corporation, possibly by the admission of 35 select freemen in 1797, the last to be admitted before 1830.1 Consequently the Beresfords, headed by Henry, 2nd Marquess of Waterford, controlled the borough and returned different members of the family to suit their convenience. Thus Hill replaced Jones in 1806 because he was thought to be in danger of a contest at Londonderry, while Lord George Beresford came in in 1812 to avoid a contest for the county. The Beresfords’ support for each administration in turn strengthened their hand, for as Lord Howick put it apropos of Lord Waterford, 4 Dec. 1806, ‘if not assisted by government ... it is very doubtful whether he might not have been beaten at Coleraine’.2

Author: P. J. Jupp

Notes

  • 1. Sheffield mss, Foster to Sheffield, 8 Dec. 1799; Parl Rep. [I], H. C. 1831-2 (519), xliii. 33-34.
  • 2. Grey mss, Howick to Bedford (copy), 4 Dec. 1806.