1734

Transcription completed and kindly shared by James Collett-White, in How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685-1735: The Evidence of Local Poll Books (2 vols., Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006-2008), II, 201-65.

Date: Wednesday 24 Apr. 1734.

Poll book reference: Bedfordshire Archives and Records Service, OR1829 / CH923.

This transcription is a combination of two manuscript poll books for the same election: one in the hand of John Orlebar, and found amongst his family papers, and the other from the papers of the Chester family of Chicheley. There are numerous variations between the two copies. Collett-White has differentiated between them by placing any data unique to the Orlebar document in parentheses ( ), and any data unique to the Chester document in square brackets [ ] (James Collett-White, How Bedfordshire Voted, 1685-1735, II, 199-200).

Candidates: John Spencer (Whig); Sir Rowland Alston (Whig): and Charles Leigh (Tory).

Charles Leigh had served as Knight of the Shire from 1722 to 1727, and from 1733 in a Bedfordshire by-election. He had also had formerly been MP for Warwick (1710-1713) and Higham Ferrers (1714-1722).

Sir Rowland Alston, the other incumbent, was the nephew of the duke of Kent, who managed Whig interests in Bedfordshire in the early eighteenth century. Alston was especially recommended by Robert Walpole, First Lord of the Treasury at the time, and supported by the 4th duke of Bedford.

John Spencer was the duke of Bedford's brother-in-law, and grandson of the duke and duchess of Marlborough. He was also standing for MP for Woodstock.

Alston and Spencer were elected as Knights of the Shire. However, John Spencer chose to be seated for Woodstock, spurring the election of Whig Sir Roger Burgoyne in a by-election in February 1735.