Gatton, returning its two members to Parliament, as of old, was early in the nineteenth century purchased by Mark Wood, Esq., who was soon after created a Baronet. It was then recorded that in this borough there were six houses and only one freeholder: Sir Mark Wood himself. The other five houses he let by the week; and thus, paying the taxes, he was the only elector of the two representatives. At the election, he and his son Mark were the candidates, and the father duly elected himself and his son! Scandalous, no doubt; but those members must have represented the constituency better than could those of a larger electorate.
The landowner who possessed such a pocket-borough as this, and could send whomsoever he liked to Parliament, to vote as he wished, was, of course, a very important personage. His opposition was a serious matter to Governments; his support of the highest value, both politically and in a pecuniary sense; and thus place, honours, riches, could be, and were, secured. The manor of Gatton actually, in the cynical recognition of these things, was valued at twice its worth without that Parliamentary representation, and Lord Monson, who purchased the property in 1830, gave as much as £100,000 for it, solely as an investment in jobbery and corruption, by which he hoped, in the course of shrewd political wire-pulling, to obtain a cent per cent return.
GATTON HALL AND “TOWN HALL.”
He was a humorist of a cynical turn who built in front of the great mansion in midst of the park a “Town Hall” for the non-existent town, and inscribed on the urn which stands by this freakish, temple-like structure the motto, satirical in this setting, “Salus populi suprema lex esto,” together with other sardonic Latin, to the effect that no votes sullied by bribery should be given.
Less than two years after Lord Monson’s purchase of the estate, Reform had destroyed the value of Gatton Park, for it was disfranchised. We can only wonder that he did not claim compensation for the abolition of his “vested interests.”
MUSTARD
There is a remarkable appropriateness in Gatton Hall being designed in the classic style, for its marble hall and Corinthian hexastyle colonnade no doubt revive the glories of the Roman villa of sixteen hundred years ago. It is magnificence itself, being indeed designed something after the manner of the Vatican at Rome, and decorated with rare and costly marbles and frescoes; but perhaps, to any one less than an emperor or a pope, a little unhomely and uncomfortable to live in. Since 1888 it has been the seat of Sir Jeremiah Colman, of Colman’s Mustard, created a Baronet, 1907:
Mother, get it if you’re able,
See the trade mark on the label,
Colman’s Mustard is the Best——[Advt.],
as some unlaurelled bard of the grocery trade once sang, in deathless verse.