St Germans was a rotten borough in Cornwall which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the English and later British Parliament from 1562 to 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
History The borough consisted of part of St Germans parish in South-East Cornwall, a coastal town too small to have a mayor and corporation, where the chief economic activity was fishing. 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 in theory with all (adult male) householders, but in practice only a handful (who called themselves freemen) exercised the right; there were only seven voters in 1831. The Eliot family had exercised complete control over the choice of MPs for many years, as was also true at nearby Liskeard.Page 147, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957)
In 1831, the borough had a population of 672, and 99 houses. The boundaries excluded part of the town, which consisted of 124 houses in total, but this was still far too small to justify its retaining its representation, and St Germans was disfranchised by the Reform Act in 1832. The decision, however, was controversial: the whole parish (of which the town made up only a fraction) had a population in the 1821 census of 2,404, and the initial proposal was that St Germans should lose only one of its two MPs. But the borough covered only , and the town 50, in a parish of more than 9,000 acres (36 km2). The Whig government decided that the availability in a surrounding parish of sufficient population should not save a borough from disfranchisement, unless a substantial part of that population was already within the borough boundaries. The bill's schedules were amended so as to extinguish both of the St Germans MPs, saving instead the second MP at Penryn (where the boundaries had been extended to take in the neighbouring town of Falmouth). The Tory opposition attacked the decision as politically motivated (St Germans was a Tory borough), and the vote in the Commons was one of the narrowest in the entire reform bill debates.
Members of Parliament
MPs 1563–1629 ParliamentFirst memberSecond memberParliament of 1563–1567William MohunWilliam HydeParliament of 1571Charles GlemhamThomas CosgraveParliament of 1572–1581Thomas AysheRichard EliotParliament of 1584–1585George CarewHenry DennyParliament of 1586–1587Thomas BodleyEdward BarkerParliament of 1588–1589William BarringtonWilliam LanghamParliament of 1593Sampson LennardJohn GlanvilleParliament of 1597–1598Robert HatchmanJohn ChamberlainParliament of 1601(Sir) George CarewJohn OsborneParliament of 1604–1611John TrottAddled Parliament (1614)Sir John EliotParliament of 1621–1622Richard TisdaleSir Richard BullerHappy Parliament (1624–1625) (Sir) John Coke Sir John StradlingUseless Parliament (1625) Sir Henry MartenParliament of 1625–1626 Sir John EliotParliament of 1628–1629 Thomas CottonBenjamin ValentineNo Parliament summoned 1629–1640
MPs 1640–1832 YearFirst memberFirst partySecond memberSecond partyApril 1640 William Scawen John EliotNovember 1640 Benjamin ValentineParliamentarian John MoyleA writ was issued for a by-election in November 1646, apparently in the mistaken belief that Moyle had died. William Scawen was elected, but does not appear to have attempted to take his seatParliamentarian December 1648Moyle excluded in Pride's Purge – seat vacant 1652Valentine died 1652 – seat vacant1653St Germans was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the ProtectorateJanuary 1659 John Glanville John St AubynMay 1659Not represented in the restored Rump 1660 John Eliot Richard Knightley 1661 Edward Eliot 1679 Daniel Eliot Richard Eliot 1685 Sir Thomas Higgons 1689 Sir Walter Moyle 1690 Henry Fleming 1698 John Tanner 1700 Henry Fleming January 1701 John Speccot April 1701 Daniel Eliot December 1701 Richard Edgcumbe Whig 1702 John Anstis May 1705 Samuel Rolle December 1705 Edward Eliot 1708 Francis Scobell Tory 1710 John Knight WhigJanuary 1715 Waller BaconBacon was also elected for Norwich, which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Germans May 1715 Lord Stanhope Whig 1722 Lord Binning Philip Cavendish 1727 Sir Gilbert Heathcote Whig Sidney Godolphin January 1733 Richard Eliot March 1733 Dudley Ryder 1734 The Lord Baltimore Charles Montagu 1741 John Hynde Cotton James Newsham 1747 Richard Eliot Thomas Potter 1748 Edward EliotEliot was re-elected in 1768 but had also been elected for Liskeard, which he chose to represent, and did not for St Germans in that Parliament Whig 1754 Anthony Champion 1761 Philip Stanhope 1765 William Hussey March 1768 Samuel SaltSalt was also elected for Liskeard, which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Germans December 1768 George Jennings Benjamin Langlois 1774 Edward Eliot Whig 1775 John Pownall 1776 John Peachey 1780 Edward James Eliot Dudley Long Whig 1784 John Hamilton Tory Abel Smith 1788 Samuel Smith February 1790 Sir Charles Hamilton June 1790 The Marquess of Lorne Whig Hon. Edward James EliotEliot was also elected for Liskeard, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for St Germans in this Parliament 1791 Hon. William Eliot Tory 1796 Lord Grey Whig 1802 Lord Binning Tory James Langham 1806 Sir Joseph Yorke Tory Matthew Montagu Tory 1810 Charles Philip Yorke Tory 1812 William Henry Pringle Tory Henry Goulburn Tory 1818 Hon. Seymour Thomas Bathurst Tory Charles Arbuthnot Tory 1826 Charles Ross Tory 1827 James Loch WhigJuly 1830 Sir Henry HardingeHardinge was also elected for Newport (Cornwall), which he chose to represent, and never sat for St Germans ToryDecember 1830 Winthrop Mackworth Praed Tory1832 Constituency abolished
Notes
References
Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (London: Hutchinson, 1973) 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) 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 (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)