“That the right of election of members to serve in Parliament for the borough of Steyning, in the county of Sussex, is in the constable and householders, inhabitants within the said borough, paying scot and lot, and not receiving alms.”
The houses built on ancient foundations were all the property of the late Sir John Honeywood; the rest belonged to the Duke of Norfolk: and as those of a general description are more numerous, the resolution of 1792, repealing that of 1791, changed the patron, and transferred that influence to the Duke of Norfolk, which the former gave to Sir John Honeywood.
The resolution of 1791 ousted Henry Howard, esq., the present member for Gloster, who had a majority of the householders paying scot and lot, and declared John Curtis, esq., who had only the votes of those persons who inhabited houses built on ancient foundations, duly elected.
The resolution of 1792 established the election of James Martin Lloyd, esq., who polled the identical votes which were deemed illegal the preceding year; and the petitioner lost his seat by the same pretensions that Mr. Curtis had obtained one.
These contradictory resolutions have been productive of the same parliamentary inconsistency which distinguished the borough of Saltash, in the Parliament of 1785. Mr. Ambler obtained his seat for that place by the decision of a committee in that year, against the petition of Lord Strathaven, and the same Mr. Curtis, who now succeeded at Steyning, on the right of the corporation to elect the members for Saltash. In 1787, Mr. Lemon, the petitioner, by the determination of a second committee, appointed to try the same question, succeeded on the votes of the burgage-holders, and ousted the Earl of Mornington, sitting member, who had been elected by the corporation.
“Thus two members were sitting in the House of Commons at the same time, and for the same borough, upon the right of different descriptions of electors who had each of them been deemed ineligible in the same Parliament.”
This was exactly the case with the representatives of this borough. The inhabitants of houses built on ancient foundations, and the inhabitants in general, have each been declared to possess the right of election; and a member, chosen by each description of voters, has been seated and ousted in the same Parliament.
Since the above decision on the right of election, the Duke of Norfolk has effectually prevented all further contest, by purchasing the whole of Sir John Honeywood’s property in Steyning, as he did that of the Marquis of Hertford, at Horsham, and thereby became sole proprietor of both boroughs.