Lord J. Russell carried his Grampound2 Bill in
1 Afterwards second Lord Dunfermline. 2 A corrupt borough which was disfranchised. This borough, with its handful of sixty electors, became notorious after the General Election of 1818. Wholesale corruption had prevailed through the bribery exercised by Sir Manasseh Lopez, one of the leading boroughmongers in the West of England. He was convicted of bribery in both Cornwall and Devon, and sentenced to a heavy fine as well as to imprisonment at Exeter. Lord John Russell brought the circumstances before the House of Commons on May 11, 1819, and the affairs of the borough came in that Parliament (1818-20) and in its successor of 1820-26 frequently before the members of both Houses of Parliament. Ultimately the borough was disfranchised, and its two members transferred, after 1826, to the county of York. Down to 1832 “Grampound alone, of all the English boroughs, could boast that it had been disfranchised” (W. P. Courtney, “Parliamentary Representation of Cornwall to 1832,” pp. 183-205). |
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