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Cockermouth
Borough
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Background Information
Right of Election:
in burgage holders
Number of voters:
about 200
Population:
(1801): 2,865
Elections
Date | Candidate | Votes |
---|---|---|
3 July 1790 | JOHN ANSTRUTHER | |
JOHN BAYNES GARFORTH | ||
5 Aug. 1793 | ANSTRUTHER re-elected after appointment to office | |
7 June 1796 | JOHN BAYNES GARFORTH | |
EDWARD BURROW | ||
29 Dec. 1800 | WALTER SPENCER STANHOPE vice Burrow, deceased | |
8 July 1802 | ROBERT WARD | |
JAMES GRAHAM | ||
22 July 1805 | GEORGE STEWART, Visct. Garlies, vice Graham, vacated his seat | |
3 Nov. 1806 | JOHN LOWTHER | |
JAMES GRAHAM | ||
17 Jan. 1807 | THOMAS HAMILTON, Lord Binning, vice Lowther, chose to sit for Cumberland | |
16 May 1807 | JOHN LOWTHER | |
JAMES GRAHAM | ||
21 July 1807 | JOHN OSBORN vice Lowther, chose to sit for Cumberland | |
11 July 1808 | WILLIAM LOWTHER, Visct. Lowther, vice Osborn, vacated his seat | |
31 Jan. 1810 | LOWTHER re-elected after appointment to office | |
12 Oct. 1812 | WILLIAM LOWTHER, Visct. Lowther | |
JOHN LOWTHER | ||
23 Dec. 1812 | AUGUSTUS JOHN FOSTER vice John Lowther, chose to sit for Cumberland | |
27 Nov. 1813 | THOMAS WALLACE vice Visct. Lowther, appointed to office | |
1 Mar. 1816 | JOHN HENRY LOWTHER vice Foster, vacated his seat | |
6 Feb. 1818 | WALLACE re-elected after appointment to office | |
20 June 1818 | JOHN HENRY LOWTHER | 23 |
JOHN BECKETT | 22 | |
Sir Frederick Fletcher Vane, Bt. | 2 | |
Hon. George Lamb | 1 |
Main Article
Cockermouth remained a pocket borough of the Lowther family until 1832. James, 1st Earl of Lonsdale, usually returned personal adherents, but when Sir William Lowther* succeeded to his electoral influence he frequently placed a seat at the disposal first of the Pittites and later of administration. Although the Earl of Egremont, as lord of the manor and a substantial local property owner, was well suited to contest control of the borough, he could not be induced to take an interest in its politics during this period. Nothing came of the report of an attempt to open the borough in December 1812 by Mr (probably Joseph) Hume*.1
The abortive challenge to the Lowther interest at the general election of 1818, inspired by Brougham’s anti-Lowther crusade in Westmorland and engineered by his brother James, gave ample proof of the futility of fighting a popular campaign in a constituency under tight local control. The unsuccessful Whig candidates meant to contest ‘the question of burgage’; and ‘it was their intention to have polled a good many householders that they might, in that view of the right of voting, have also a majority. But ... they could not get householders to poll for them—two at the utmost.’ No petition materialized.2