St. Germans

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 householders resident for a year

Number of voters:

about 20 in 1792 reduced to 7 in 1815

Population:

(1801): 2,030 (the parish, not the borough)

Elections

DateCandidate
22 June 1790GEORGE CAMPBELL, Mq. of Lorne
 HON. EDWARD JAMES ELIOT
7 Jan. 1791 HON. WILLIAM ELIOT vice Eliot, chose to sit for Liskeard
28 May 1796HON. WILLIAM ELIOT
 GEORGE HARRY GREY, Lord Grey
5 July 1800 ELIOT re-elected after appointment to office
6 July 1802THOMAS HAMILTON, Lord Binning
 JAMES LANGHAM
1 Nov. 1806SIR JOSEPH SYDNEY YORKE
 MATTHEW MONTAGU
9 May 1807SIR JOSEPH SYDNEY YORKE
 MATTHEW MONTAGU
27 Apr. 1810 HON. CHARLES PHILIP YORKE vice Yorke, vacated his seat
25 May 1810 YORKE re-elected after appointment to office
9 Oct. 1812WILLIAM HENRY PRINGLE
 HENRY GOULBURN
17 June 1818HON. SEYMOUR THOMAS BATHURST
 CHARLES ARBUTHNOT

Main Article

St. Germans was under the sole patronage of the Lords Eliot of Port Eliot, from 1815 Earls of St. Germans. The 1st Baron Eliot returned his sons for one seat and friends of government for the other, except in 1802. His heir tended to do likewise, returning in-laws and cousins for one seat. In 1806 the prime minister Lord Grenville was uncertain of Eliot’s support and the latter accused him of encouraging an opposition (chiefly at Liskeard but also at St. Germans) against the patron’s own brother-in-law Sir Joseph Yorke, 7 Nov. In reply (10 Nov.) Grenville denied that he intended any opposition and stated that he knew nothing of Yorke’s candidature.1 Possibly the last comment was an implied criticism of the fact that Eliot was not placing both seats at the disposal of friends of government, as his father had done in 1802.

No opposition to the patron materialized, though in 1814 a Whig agent reported:

Lord Eliot is outrageous about [Lord] Yarmouth’s having been using endeavours to overturn his interest in Liskeard and St Germans; ministers having made a disavowal of all knowledge of the transaction and have [sic] likewise remonstrated with him (Y[armouth]) on his conduct, as all the government proprietors have taken the alarm at the use attempted to be made of the influence of the duchy of Cornwall. We shall therefore soon see who is the most powerful, the favourite [Yarmouth] or the accredited ministry.2

Author: R. G. Thorne

Notes

  • 1. Fortescue mss. There was a rumour of opposition, afterwards denied, in the R. Cornw. Gazette, 1, 8 Nov. 1806.
  • 2. Grey mss, Goodwin to Grey, 16 Sept. 1814.