A Book of Cornwall

by S. Baring-Gould

The place, as already said, consists of nineteen houses. There is not a shop there. The dame's school has been transferred from the town hall to a one-roomed cottage, that crouches under a bank, and is overshadowed by sycamores.

The privileges it possessed proved to it a curse, for if there were voters in it sufficiently independent to think differently from the patron, he tore down their dwellings. After the last election but one Sir Christopher Hawkins swept away numerous cottages from his land, so as to reduce the number of voters, not because they were recalcitrant, but because all demanded payment for their votes; and to diminish the voters, as he did, from eighty to three meant a corresponding reduction in election expenses. At the election of 1831 there was no voting at all. The steward invited some two dozen individuals to dine with him in the inn; of these three only were nominated to vote. A worm-eaten chair was thrust on the balcony of the inn, and the nominee of the patron was declared chosen and chaired.

Immediately after this election the same patron, Sir Christopher Hawkins, pulled down twelve more houses; amongst these a handsome mansion opposite the town hall, that had been erected by Lord Falmouth in 1780, when he was dominant in the borough, and all the stonework was carried away for the construction of Lord Falmouth's new house at Tregothnan.

In the penultimate election there were but thirteen electors, who were nominated by the patron. But even these were not altogether submissive. A stranger came amongst them, and by large promises induced most of them to agree to vote for him as second representative. Dread of their patron, however, in the end proved too strong, and they returned both his nominees. The stranger, however, assured them that he would send them presents all round, and on a certain day the carrier arrived with a large chest addressed to the free and independent electors of Mitchell. On opening it, the chest was found to be full of stones, and to have thirteen halters on the top properly addressed to the several electors, among whom, by the way, were three parsons.

The unfortunate borough during the later years of its existence was a battleground of many combatants. It was never certain who had the right to vote. This question was left in ambiguity till 1700, and every successive election gave rise to a petition and Parliamentary inquiry.

In 1639, when Courtenay and Chadwell were elected, a petition was sent up to the House appealing against it, and the plea set up was that the members had got in by the aid of voters who were not qualified.

Between this date and 1705 the borough came before the Election Committee no less than fifteen times, and the right of voting was altered from time to time.

In 1660 the question arose whether the right of voting lay in the commonalty at large or in two functionaries called Eligers, nominated by the lord of the manor, and in twenty-two free men of their appointment. The Committee of the House considered that it rested with these nominees, and that the householders of Mitchell had no electoral rights whatever. But in 1689 the Committee decided that "the right of election lay with the lords of the borough, who were liable to be chosen portreeves, and in the householders of the same not receiving alms." Here was a fundamental change. All at once universal suffrage was introduced. Next year (1690) Rowe, for the second place, got in by thirty-one votes against twenty given for Courtenay. Upon investigation, it was proved that Rowe had bribed a dozen voters with £5 or £6 apiece.

In 1695 another election took place, when four members were returned, two by a deputy-portreeve, and two by the actual portreeve, a certain Timothy Gully, who was an outlaw, and lived in White Friars.

The struggles of Anthony Rowe and Humphrey Courtenay occupy and almost proverbialise this epoch. About 1698 it was noted that "the cost of these struggles had been enormous, and William Courtenay, son and heir of Humphrey, was forced to petition the House to be allowed to sell his entailed estates to defray them."