The constituency consisted of the market town ofHedon, inHolderness to the east ofHull, which had been of some importance in medieval times but which by 1831 had dwindled to 217 houses and a population of 1,080, and the borough was disfranchised in theReform Act 1832.
The right of election in Hedon was vested in theburgesses generally, meaning that a high proportion of the male population had the vote. In 1826, when the election was contested, 331 burgesses recorded their votes. Nevertheless, the result was rarely in doubt, Hedon being a classic example of apocket borough where the influence of the landowner or "patron" was substantial if not absolute. At first the influence seems to have been shared between two families of important local landowners, the Constables ofBurton Constable and the Hildyards ofWinestead. The patron at the start of the 18th century wasHenry Guy; he bequeathed it to his protégéWilliam Pulteney, who not only sat for the borough himself for much of his career but made the other seat available to his cousin and his brother. After Pulteney's death the borough passed to the distinguished admiralLord Anson,[1] who used his patronage to provide seats for some of his naval colleagues;[2] one of these,Admiral Sir Charles Saunders, inherited the patronage in turn when Anson died.
Michael Brock,The Great Reform Act (London: Hutchinson, 1973)
D Brunton & D H Pennington, “Members of the Long Parliament” (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
J E Neale, "The Elizabethan House of Commons" (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
Frederic A Youngs, jr, "Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II" (London:Royal Historical Society, 1991)
