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60 HISTORY OF EAST GRINSTEAD. |
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Division, again return its Member to Parliament in 1885. He died March 26th, 1886, aged 81.
1830, July 31st. Viscount Holmesdale and Frederick Richard West,
of Ruthin Castle, Denbigh.
Mr. West was a grandson of John, second Earl De la Warr. He was born in 1799 and died May 1st, 1862.
1831, April 30th. Viscount Holmesdale and Frederick Richard West.
This was the last election for East Grinstead. Parliament was dissolved on December 3rd, 1832, and on that day the existence of the town as a Parliamentary Borough came to an abrupt termination. The Bailiff of East Grinstead was, ex-officio, the Returning Officer, and in 1831 Mr. Edward Cranston occupied this position. He was called on by Parliament to furnish a report, and this interesting document is dated December 23rd, 1831. In it Mr. Cranston stated that he believed the then number of electors was 36 and that at the last contested election in 1807 19 electors polled. In the town of East Grin-stead there were then 131 houses, and about 50 of these were outside the old Borough. In the previous year these houses paid £21. 19s. 6d. in assessed taxes, and the total assessed taxes paid by the Borough amounted to £162. 5s. 3d., the total assessment for the whole parish at Lady-day, 1831, being £763. 3s. 6d.
This report was of such a nature that Parliament at once sent down a Surveyor to go more fully into details. He ascertained that there were 36 burgage tenements (these alone giving the right to vote), but in four instances two burgages were occupied together as one house, leaving really only 32 places in respect of which a vote was allowed. Of these, 24 were estimated to be worth £10 a year or upwards. The Commissioner estimated that there were 151 occupied and two unoccupied houses in the town, there being, in addition to the burgage tenements, 79 rated houses and 80 cottages, not rated, in the town division of the parish, 40 of the latter being in the town proper. The Commissioner summed the facts up by stating:—
The boundary of the old Borough is entirely unknown, as I was assured both by the old and present Bailiffs. All that I could learn |
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