Poll Return for Clonmines, Co. Wexford, 1761Co. Wexford: An ...

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Poll Return for Clonmines, Co. Wexford, 1761

Co. Wexford: An interesting original Manuscript Certificate, reporting that at a meeting of Burgesses held on 9 May 1761, Henry Alcock of Wilton and Henry Tottenham of Tottenham Green were returned as MPs of Clonmines. Signed by James Boyd the portreeve, and six others.
The election can hardly have generated much excitement: Clonmines in South Wexford had been a prosperous little town in the Middle Ages, but by 1761 it was a cluster of uninhabited ruins. Nonetheless, it returned two members to the Irish House of Commons down to 1800. The "voters" were the burgesses (townsmen), numbering thirteen, none of whom lived there (there was no town). They were hand picked by the patron, Lord Loftus, and allegedly included several of his own servants! Along with other so-called rotten boroughs, the constituency was abolished at the Act of Union in 1800. Single sheet, as a m/ss, w.a.f. (1)

* Rare historical document. "Tottenham in his Boots."