POLITICAL HISTORY 



Sacheverell as member for Nottingham, George Gregory presented a petition 

 to the House complaining of many illegal practices adopted by the successful 

 candidate. 1 In the same year John Raynor, candidate for Newark, petitioned 

 that he himself was the duly chosen burgess, but the mayor and others had 

 used many illegal practices in favour of his rival Sir Francis Molyneux who had 

 been returned. 2 In January, 1700, the House resolved that Sir Francis 

 Molyneux was not duly elected, and the mayor was taken into custody for 

 his conduct at the election. 3 In the same year George Gregory and Robert 

 Sacheverell were again rival candidates for Nottingham. Gregory was 

 returned, and thereupon Sacheverell petitioned that he had been returned 

 by means of many corrupt and illegal practices by the sheriff, the mayor, 

 and many others. 4 At the end of the session Parliament resolved that 

 Gregory was not duly elected, and the return was ordered to be amended. 6 

 Similar petitions were sent to the House of Commons year after year, but 

 the system of representation was anything but satisfactory. 6 In May, 1783, 

 John Cartwright wrote to the ' gentry, clergy, and freeholders of co. Notting- 

 ham who have a vain shadow of representation in Parliament, but more 

 particularly to the rest of the inhabitants who have no representation at 

 all ' that something further must be done, the unrepresented must petition 

 as well as the badly represented, so ' to bring the House of Commons back 

 to its ancient purity and dependence on the people.' Such a reform would 

 create no ascendancy of any one political party, ' it would not favour a 

 Shelburne more than a Fox, a Bute more than a Portland.' 7 A petition of 

 the inhabitants of Nottingham not possessed of the necessary qualification of 

 freehold of 40^. was accordingly prepared, but seems to have effected little. 8 



In 1812 and 1813, when the question of peace or war with Napoleon 

 played so great a part in the elections, seventy burgesses met at Nottingham 

 Guildhall to draw up a petition in the interests of peace. The speaker of 

 the evening exhibited two loaves 'of war and peace ; the first, the big loaf of 

 1791, and the second, the small loaf of i8i3.' 9 But in the minds of many 

 the cause of the distress of those years lay deeper. Thus Major Cartwright 

 wrote : ' I hear you are petitioning about peace in your town. I would to 

 God you would get to work on reform, without which peace is of no value.' 

 No temporary expedient or temporary peace could avail ; ' to save the state is 

 to restore the constitution.' 10 The Reform Bill of 1832 accomplished much, 

 but did not satisfy the extremists, whose organ in Nottinghamshire was the 

 Nottingham Review. Leading articles in October, 1838, called for universal 

 suffrage, for the sovereignty of the people, asking how long Whigs would act 

 Tories in denying such. 11 In November, 1838, when the Chartist movement 

 was gaining head, a Radical demonstration was made on the borders of Sher- 

 wood Forest since the mayor forbade a meeting in the town. A long pro- 

 cession made its way to the meeting-place from the surrounding towns, and in 



1 Bailey, Ann. of Notts, iii, 1,055. * Ibid. 1,056. 



* Joum. of House of Commons, Jan. 1700. 4 Bailey, op. cit. iii, 1,061. 



5 Journ. of House of Commons, June, 1700. However Sacheverell's triumph was but short-lived. The 

 return was ordered to bs amended on 10 June, Parliament was prorogued on 24 June and never met again. 



6 In 1741 the burgesses and freeholders of Nottingham gave instructions to their representatives to bring 

 forward a Bill for ousting placemen from Parliament ; to reduce so dangerous an influence both for now and 

 futurity. Add. MS. 33,060, fol. 219. 



' Nott. Journ. May, 1783. Ibid. ' Nott. Gaz. Jan. 1813. 



10 Ibid. " Nott. Ret>. Oct. 1838. 



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