170 Swindon and its Neighbourhood — No, 2. 



large purchases of land at Blunsdon, Bradcn, and Wootton Basset. 

 Laurence Hyde was in the Administration and M.P. for Wootton 

 in 1678, and obtained a new charter for the town. 



The most notorious feature in the history of Wootton is, of course, 

 its Parliamentary connection. 



It is not altogether easy at this time of^day to explain exactly 

 how certain small, sometimes almost insignificantly small places, 

 obtained in early days the privilege of sending Burgesses to Parlia- 

 ment. But of one point we are certain : that the power of the 

 Crown was far greater then than it is now, and that the Crown 

 conferred the privilege upon places which were actually the property 

 of the Crown itself. In this county, for instance, there were within 

 living memory no less than thirty-four Members of Parliament, 

 some of them for very small places ; but you will find that those 

 small places had been Crown property. It is the same with Corn- 

 wall, which once sent forty-two members. There again most of 

 them belonged to the Duchy of Cornwall, a Crown estate. 



Wootton began to return members in that somewhat vague period 

 which is often referred to as " time out of mind/'' but the list of 

 names preserved commences with the year 1446. We know very 

 little about what took place at the elections till the year 1685, and 

 therefore out of our abundant charity we will give Wootton the 

 benefit of the doubt, and will suppose that for that interval of two 

 hundred and thirty-nine years all was peace, purity, and virtue, 

 because I am afraid that from and after the year 1685 virtue, 

 purity, and peace took flight from Wootton Basset elections, and 

 never came back till the elections were over. The House of Com- 

 mons must have a cupboard full of petitions complaining of indirect 

 practices there ; and no great wonder, when the right of voting was 

 limited (comparatively speaking) to a handful of men, many of 

 whom were poor labourers in the service, and under the influence, 

 of neighbouring employers. A newspaper report of the year 1754 

 gives us, by way of a specimen, the following account of one of 

 these rather lively displays of peace, purity, and virtue : — " We hear 

 from Wootton Basset that there has been such rioting about the 

 election as never was known in so small a town. There are four 



