East Looe (UK Parliament constituency)

East Looe
East Looe
Former Borough constituency; for the House of Commons
County	Cornwall
Major settlements	East Looe
1571–1832
Number of members	Two
Replaced by	East Cornwall

East Looe was a parliamentary borough represented in the House of Commons of England from 1571 to 1707, in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1797 to 1800, and finally in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 until its abolition in 1832. It elected two Members of Parliament (MP) by the bloc vote system of election. It was disenfranchised in the Reform Act 1832.

History[]

The borough consisted of the town of East Looe in Cornwall, connected by bridge across the River Looe to West Looe, which was also a parliamentary borough. From the reign of Edward VI, East Looe and West Looe were jointly a borough, returning two members of Parliament; however, under Queen Elizabeth the two towns were separated, and each thereafter returned two members except between 1654 and 1658, when they were once again represented jointly as East Looe and West Looe, by one member of the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments.

The right of election was in Mayor and members of the corporation, together with a number of freemen of the borough. Namier and Brooke estimated that there were about fifty voters in this constituency in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is estimated that by 1800 there were still about fifty electors, and in 1831 the number of eligible voters was 38 while the population of the borough was 865.

In practice, this meant that the power to choose the MPs was in the hands of the local landowner or "proprietor", making East Looe (like West Looe) one of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs. The borough was long controlled by the Trelawny family of the nearby manor of Trelawny^[1] in the parish of Pelynt. For many years at the time of the Reform Act, East Looe had been controlled by the Buller family of Morval (which also controlled West Looe and Saltash), and many members of the family sat for the borough in the House of Commons.

After the Reform Act 1832 disenfranchised the borough, it reverted to being represented as part of the county constituency covering its area. Cornwall was divided into two divisions in 1832, East Cornwall (with its place of election at Bodmin) and West Cornwall (which voted at Truro). East Looe was located in East Cornwall.

Members of Parliament[]

1571-1629[]

Parliament	First member	Second member
Parliament of 1571	John Wolley
Parliament of 1572-1583
Parliament of 1584-1585		Anthony Rous
Parliament of 1586-1587	Abraham Hartwell
Parliament of 1588-1589		Sir Robert Jermyn
Parliament of 1593		Gregory Downhall
Parliament of 1597-1598	Ambrose Bellot
Parliament of 1601
Parliament of 1604-1611	Sir Robert Phelips	Sir John Parker
Addled Parliament (1614)	George Chudleigh	Sir Reginald Mohun
Parliament of 1621-1622	Sir John Walter	Sir Jerome Horsey
Happy Parliament (1624-1625)	Sir John Walter
Useless Parliament (1625)		Sir John Trevor
Parliament of 1625-1626		John Chudleigh
Parliament of 1628-1629	William Murray	Paul Specot
No Parliament summoned 1629-1640

1640-1832[]

	First member	First party	Second member	Second party
April 1640	William Scawen
November 1640		Royalist	Francis Buller	Parliamentarian
January 1644	Lower disabled to sit - seat vacant
1647	John Moyle
December 1648	John Moyle		Buller excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant
1653	East Looe was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament
1654	Major John Blackmore		In the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate, one MP was elected jointly for East Looe and West Looe
1656	John Buller^[2]
January 1659	John Buller^[2]		John Kendall
May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump
1660	Henry Seymour		Jonathan Trelawny
1661			Robert Atkyns
1673
1677
1679			Sir Jonathan Trelawny
1681	John Kendall		Sir Jonathan Trelawny
1685	Charles Trelawny	Tory	Sir William Trumbull	Whig
1689	Charles Trelawny	Tory	Henry Trelawny
1699	Sir Henry Seymour		Henry Trelawny
1701			Francis Godolphin^[3]
February 1702			George Courtenay
July 1702
1705			George Clarke
1708			Harry Trelawny
1710			Thomas Smith
1713	Sir Charles Hedges	Tory
1715	John Smith	Whig	Sir James Bateman
1718			Horatio Walpole^[4]
1722			William Lowndes
January 1724	Viscount Malpas	Whig	William Lowndes
February 1724	Viscount Malpas	Whig	Sir Henry Hoghton
1727	Charles Longueville		Sir John Trelawny
1734			Edward Trelawny^[5]
1735			Samuel Holden
1740			Henry Legge	Whig
1741	Francis Gashry	Whig	James Buller	Tory
1747	Francis Gashry	Whig	John Buller^[6]
1762	The Viscount Palmerston
1768
1770
1772	John Purling
1774	Sir Charles Whitworth
January 1775	Thomas Graves
June 1775	William Graves
1783	John Hamilton	Tory
1784	William Graves
May 1786		Tory
September 1786				Tory
1788			Viscount Belgrave	Tory
February 1790	The Earl of Carysfort	Tory	Viscount Belgrave	Tory
June 1790		Tory	Hon. William Wellesley-Pole	Tory
1795		Tory	Charles Arbuthnot	Tory
1796		Tory	William Graves	Tory
1798		Tory		Tory
May 1799		Tory
July 1799	Sir John Mitford^[7]	Tory
February 1802		Tory
July 1802	Sir Edward Buller	Tory		Tory
1807				Tory
1816				Tory
1820	George Watson-Taylor	Tory
March 1826	Lord Perceval	Tory
June 1826	William Lascelles	Tory		Tory
1829	William Lascelles	Tory	Henry Thomas Hope^[8]	Tory
1830		Tory	Henry Thomas Hope^[8]	Tory
1832	Constituency abolished

Notes[]

^ History of Parliament: House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970 [1]
^ In 1659, Buller was also elected for Saltash. He chose to sit for East Looe.
^ Godolphin was also elected for Helston, which he chose to represent, and never sat for East Looe
^ Walpole was re-elected in 1722 but had also been elected for Great Yarmouth, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for East Looe
^ Trelawny was a Commissioner of Customs at the time of election, which made him ineligible, and his election was void
^ "Buller, John (1721-86), of East Looe and Bake, Cornw". historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 7 July 2016.
^ Mitford was the Speaker of the House of Commons 1801-1802
^ This person was Henry Thomas Hope who is described in ODNB by Mary S. Millar, ‘Hope, Henry Thomas (1808–1862)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 5 June 2008, not his father, of the same name.

References[]

Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807)
D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
William Cobbett, Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808)
Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons 1754-1790 (LOndon: HMSO, 1964)
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)
Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. p. 1.
Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "E" (part 1)

[1] History of Parliament: House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 1970 [1]

[2] In 1659, Buller was also elected for Saltash. He chose to sit for East Looe.

[3] Godolphin was also elected for Helston, which he chose to represent, and never sat for East Looe

[4] Walpole was re-elected in 1722 but had also been elected for Great Yarmouth, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for East Looe

[5] Trelawny was a Commissioner of Customs at the time of election, which made him ineligible, and his election was void

[6] "Buller, John (1721-86), of East Looe and Bake, Cornw". historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 7 July 2016.

[7] Mitford was the Speaker of the House of Commons 1801-1802

[8] This person was Henry Thomas Hope who is described in ODNB by Mary S. Millar, ‘Hope, Henry Thomas (1808–1862)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 5 June 2008, not his father, of the same name.

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