A Zoom Webinar
Sue Berry: Lewes and the Country Gentry c1640-1830: politics, leisure and patronage
Small towns like Lewes flourished during the eighteenth century as regional centres. Providing a widening range of goods and services to local landowners was an important source of income. Landowners employed craftsmen to work on their houses, bought clothes and furnishings and supported costly local social activities such as the Races.
Some invested in the turnpikes, improvements to the river Ouse and in lime works, all of which brought employment to Lewes townsfolk. Many boosted agricultural outputs by enlarging farms, so giving the town more to market.
Some landowners spent a lot of money in the town because they wanted to be MPs for Lewes, which had two seats, and were trying to bribe those who could vote. Until the Secret Ballot became law in 1872, voting was public. Elections in Lewes were lively and costly to the landowners involved; bribery, corruption and bullying were the norm, as we will see.
Firle Place, by James Lambert Jnr. Image courtesy of the Sussex Archaeological Society
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