This brief sketch will perhaps suffice as an explanation of the origin and character of the borough system in general. Let us now turn to the case of Tiverton in particular. As has been intimated, many of the inhabitants believed that Tiverton was a borough by prescription, and that accordingly the crown could not by its charter limit the right of election to members of the corporate body alone. Naturally the evidence relied on was that of State papers. An inquisition post mortem ao 51 Edw. III. sets out the extent and value of the manor and borough, from which it appears that the two were distinct as to rents and services, and that each had a separate court. By Letters Patent ao 1 Edw. IV., the King grants the manor, borough and hundred to Humphry Stafford, Knight, in special tail without any other description. These data are obviously insufficient, and search was made at the Rolls Chapel from the thirty-third year of Henry VIII., the year of the earliest return to Parliament extant since the reign of Edward IV. The result was not satisfactory to the enthusiasts who instituted the inquiry, the first return discovered being that of 18 James I., when John Bamfylde and John Davye, Esqrs., were returned by indenture dated the 20th December, by the Mayor, capital burgesses, and assistants. It may be added that in Prynne’s Brevia Parliamentaria there occurs no mention of Tiverton, which, on all these grounds, can hardly have been a borough in the sense desired.
Tiverton, then, we may take it as certain, did not enjoy the right of returning members until the thirteenth year of the reign of James I., when the Mayor, Capital Burgesses, Assistant Burgesses of the town and parish, or the major part of them, were empowered to choose and nominate two discreet and sufficient men to be burgesses of the Parliament. The charter was renewed in the same terms in the fourth year of James II., and again in the reign of George II., so that we need feel no surprise that, when the potwallopers from time to time threatened to assert their supposed right, the members of the Common Council, assured of their legal position, treated such vapourings with calm superiority. Until the tidal wave of reform demolished the bulwarks of their monopoly, the twenty-four were sole masters and arbiters. It was they who had the right to decide who should sit in Parliament for the ancient town—they and they alone. But how that right was exercised, if we except the bare list of the Council’s nominees, there is for a long period no evidence to show.
However, there was always material for a deal, and in the former half of the eighteenth century Tiverton already figures as a political tied-house. The overlordship afterwards acquired by the Ryder family was then vested in a politician of some note, who in 1728 was one of the representatives of Tiverton, though the Parliamentary connection of his house with Honiton was even closer and of much longer standing, lasting, indeed, from 1640 to 1796. We allude to Sir William Yonge. Martin Dunsford, the first real historian of Tiverton, describes him as “a popular man and closely attached to the minister, Sir Robert Walpole,” adding that he “had great influence over the leading members of the Corporation of Tiverton, and generally directed their choice of burgesses.” The same writer, referring to Sir Edward Montague and Charles Gore, Esquire, who in 1761 held one of the seats successively, makes bold to assert that “there is reason to believe these members were never in Tiverton, but bargained for their seats at a distance either with Sir William Yonge or with Oliver Peard, Esq., the primum mobile, of the Corporation.” With regard to the former, there is clearly some misapprehension, as he had died in 1755, but the tradition that this eminent Devonshire worthy was dictator at Tiverton must have rested on a solid foundation. It behoves us, therefore, to render some further account of him.
In the course of his successful career Sir William, who was the fourth holder of the baronetcy, became one of the Lords of the Treasury, and on the restoration of the order in 1725, was created a Knight of the Bath. Subsequently he was appointed Secretary at War and Privy Councillor, and over and above these political distinctions, was entitled to write after his name the honourable symbols LL.D. and F.R.S. As Dunsford implies, he was a great personal friend of Walpole, and his support was of inestimable value to that statesman, “the glory of the Whigs.” Outside the house he does not appear to have counted (save, of course, in Devonshire), but inside, partly by reason of his high ability, and partly on account of his voice, which is stated to have been peculiarly melodious, his speeches were eagerly listened to. One curious fact preserved concerning him is that Sir Robert could speak from notes taken by Yonge, and by no other.
During the local supremacy of this statesman, and doubtless under his auspices and sponsorship, there was introduced to the Corporation of Tiverton a member of the Bar, Dudley Ryder, Esq., who in 1735 became their representative. In 1741, the same gentleman, but now known as Sir Dudley Ryder, Solicitor-General, was re-elected; and he continued to hold the seat until 1754, when he was elevated to the great office of Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench. Mr. Nathaniel Thomas Ryder succeeded him, but only for a short time, after which Mr. Nathaniel Ryder occupied the seat, and remained one of the members till, in 1776, he was called to the House of Lords by the title of Baron Harrowby. As the Hon. Dudley Ryder was still an infant, Mr. John Wilmot was permitted to fill the vacancy, but on the clear understanding that he would at the proper time make way for Lord Harrowby’s son and heir. This condition was eventually carried out in the most honourable manner, and, on the part of Lord Harrowby, with a patriotic regard for the public interests.
Thus, little by little and step by step, the Ryders firmly consolidated their political influence in the town, and though only one of the seats was claimed for a member of the family, the other seat also was evidently at their disposal. This for a long series of years was entrusted to the Duntzes, rich merchants of Exeter, who became baronets. Apart from politics, the Ryders had no connection with Devonshire, which they seldom visited, but Sir John Duntze, living at Rockbeare, and a member of the Tiverton Corporation, was able to keep a watchful eye on the local barometer, of whose subtle changes he (and most of his colleagues) kept Lord Harrowby sedulously and punctually informed through the post. On the other hand, poor Duntze, a perfect martyr to rheumatism, experienced, owing to the exposure of the long journey by coach, considerable difficulty in attending to his Parliamentary duties, and for practical purposes Lord Harrowby, or his nominee, was the London agent of the Tiverton Corporation. From the point of view of convenience no arrangement could have been happier.
The above remarks apply to the first Lord Harrowby and the first Sir John Duntze. The second Lord Harrowby, after a distinguished official career, was advanced to the dignity of an earldom, and locally much regret was expressed that he did not take his second title from the town so long represented by his grandfather, his father, and himself. Had this been the case, the present Lord Chancellor, whose eldest son enjoys the courtesy title of Viscount Tiverton, must have looked elsewhere for a subsidiary territorial designation. The second Sir John Duntze lived at Tiverton in a large house, which he either erected or restored for himself in the centre of the town; and an old man named Court, who is still alive, but almost totally blind, told me a year or two since of a lively incident which he can remember as taking place in front of the floridly decorated mansion. The potwallopers of the place, he said, organized a torchlight procession, the principal feature of which was a cavalcade of four-and-twenty bedizened donkeys. The point could not be missed. The asses were aggressively emblematic of the “corporators,” and their riders of the family of which Lord Harrowby was the head.
In 1832, the Parliamentary connection ended with the passage of the Reform Bill. The alliance had always been with the Corporation rather than with the town, although many of the inhabitants, directly and indirectly, had been repeatedly benefited by the generous consideration of Lord Harrowby and his relations. There was, however, in the town a strong body of malcontents numerous enough to carry their point, and a potent counter-attraction had arisen in the person of Mr. John Heathcoat, a resident manufacturer, whom his opponents derisively styled “Lord Tiverton.” In view of these facts, Lord Harrowby’s friends felt it their duty to notify him that no member or adherent of his family would stand a chance of being returned at the approaching open election. The members of the Common Council, loyal to the end, refused the least countenance or support to any of the new candidates until his lordship’s wishes had been disclosed, but the day of their predominance was already past. Politically, the game was up. Both Lord Harrowby and his brother, the Hon. Richard Ryder, consented to remain members of the Corporation, but three years later the “iron hand of Parliament,” as the Town Clerk expressed it, “terminated the long continuance and interchange of friendly communications.” At present the chief, if not the sole surviving, link between the family of Ryder and Tiverton is the large share of the ecclesiastical patronage of the borough still in the hands of Lord Harrowby.
And now for the Ryder correspondence. The earliest letters appear to date from the time when the Georgian lawyer was elevated to the bench and the seat which he had occupied, no doubt to his immense advantage, passed by inheritance to his son, then a young man fresh from college. We have the very epistles written by the gentleman whom Dunsford so grandly names “the primum mobile of the Corporation,” congratulating him on taking his master’s degree and absolving him from the unnecessary trouble of a journey to the south in order to attend his cut-and-dried election. A letter from Mr. Osmond acquaints him with the departure from the town of a “pretty partner” whose lively manners had enhanced the enjoyment of a visit, whilst the member for Tiverton was yet a callow bachelor. Eight years later Mr. Ryder had joined the noble army of Benedicks, and then we find Mrs. Peard afflicted with an unselfish anxiety to gratify his lady with a fine collection of shells.
Such pleasing gifts were the regular accompaniment and sweetener of the more serious transactions, the graver obligations which formed the mainstay of the connection. On the part of the members there was the annual present of a pair of bucks for the municipal banquet, and one of the oddest passages in this vast epistolary jungle is to be found in a letter of Sir John Duntze, in which he informs his colleague that a member of the Corporation, on bad terms with another member, announced as the ostensible cause of the quarrel, that he had been improperly helped to venison on the occasion of this important festival. Allusions to the subject are so frequent and unctuous, that one is tempted to conclude that in those gay, convivial days the yearly consignment of venison was a more considerable factor in the case than we should now deem possible. Thus, Mr. Mayor observes, with the distinctive air of a man of the world:—