1715

Dates: Wednesday 9 Feb. 1715 (polling probably began on Tuesday 1 Feb).

Poll book reference: A true and exact list of the inhabitants... who poll'd for Philip Freke and Thomas Edwards... (Bristol: W. Bonny, 1715).

Candidates: Sir William Daines (Whig); Joseph Earle (Whig); Philip Freke (Tory): and Thomas Edwards (Tory). While Bristol's population was fairly evenly divided between Whigs and Tories, it was the Whigs who were largely supported by the corporation.

Sir William Daines, a merchant trading to British North America, had previously served as MP for Bristol from 1701 to 1710.

Joseph Earle, a merchant with connections to the trade in enslaved peoples, had been elected to represent Bristol in 1710. His father, Sir Thomas Earle, had served as MP and Mayor for Bristol in the 1680s.

Philip Freke ran in harness with fellow Tory Thomas Edwards. He had been elected for Bristol in 1713.

The Hanoverian succession of George I in 1714 prompted a surge in support for the Whigs, though the Tories still maintained significant support despite the Tory-Jacobite 'coronation day' riots in Bristol and other towns in the south and west of England in October 1714. In Bristol, Tories had shouted in the streets: 'Sacheverell and Ormond, and damn all foreigners!' A meeting of Dissenters had been looted and a Quaker who had tried to stop the mob was killed.

The poll book records only the votes polled for the Tory candidates, Freke and Edwards. They had a majority in the poll, but the sheriffs returned the Whig candidates Daines and Earle, allegedly while the Tories were being carried triumphantly through the city. Freke and Edwards petitioned the House of Commons for three successive years, but never secured a hearing.