The Express.
London, England, 1848-11-29 00:00:00

OUR REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM.

GREAT MARLOW.
" Where is Great Marlow ? " It is by no means
an easy place to find. Mr. Bradshaw disowns it:
even the index of his Guide does not mention it.
Ask in London, and you will probab:y find it con-
founied with Melton or Malden, and be told that it is
in Yorkshire or in Essex. irate that you have ascer-
tained it to be in Bucks, and that you only want to
know how to get there, and you are sure to be told
to go to Wolverton, "because that was the station
for Stowe." If yon enquire about its representation
yon will find every body equally in the dark. There
is a vague idea that a Mr. Williams sits for it, but
the name of the second member is en utter mystery.
" Dodd's Companion" will inform you that it is a
Colonel Knox, but you will find few people, even
about the House of Commons, who know more of him
than his name. The parliamentary history of the
place sadly requires explanation.
The borough of Marlow is situated on the Thames,l
six miles across the country from the town of Maid-
enhead, and about 30 miles from London. The great
family at Great Marlow, a century ago, wore the
Clayton., the descendants of some merchant princes,
who were lord mayors and representatives of I.ondoni
in the protestant days of William the Third. The
Claytons were lords of the manor of Marlow and
principal proprietors of its house property, and one of
them usually sat for the town, though not without
paying pretty liberally in the shape of head money to
the scot and lot voters who composed the consti-
tuency.
In the year 1768, when the Clayton influence
was at its zenith in Marlow, there existed in a
little retired village in North Wales a hard-
working,"industrious, keen-witted blacksmith, popu-
larly known in his district as " Tom Will-ams."
Tom Williams one day called upon a curate in
the locality, who was of course a bit of
a scholar, with some stones he had picked up
on a hill hard by. They hammered about the speci-
mens, put them in the fire, and tried a variety of
humble experiments with them, which ended in their
determining to purchase the ground whereon they
had been found. It was situated on the Parys Moun-
tain, near Amlwch, in Anglesea, and it proved that
they had discovered the great copper mine, known
afterwatds as " the Parys Mine," the produce of which
lay for the meet part on the surface of the hill side,
and which for many years after was productive of
ore beyond every precedent.
Tom Williams became a great man. In the town-
hall of Marlow you may see his picture now, and an
honest, good-hearted creature }on may suppose him.
The Welsh curate became the father of a Welsh peer,
and the founder of a Welsh family, without a Welsh

pedigree.
Mr. Williams' keen perception of the useful soon
led him to conclude that it would be a good plan to
smelt his copper ore somewhere nearer to the London
market, and in a place to which access was more
easy in those days than Amlwch, in the county of
Angle.ea. He accordingly came down the Thames,
and finding au old man named Pengree, who had •
little property to sell on the banks of the river, near
Marlow, he bought it of him, and built upon the
water's edge, very convenient for river barges, a
smelting work of some extent. Hard by he erected
for himself a house—now, bless your heart, "Temple
Hall " with a magnificent lonic portico.
Mr. Williams, as may easily be conceived, speedily
became a great person at Great Marlow. The scot-
and-lot voters of that town invited him to fill one
of their seats in " parliament house" upon the usual
conditions, i. e., payment of a good round sum iu head
money and treating. The Clayton, as may be sup-
posed, regarded this incursion with some little
jealousy ; but circumstances led them to acquiesce
in it. Somewhere about tho close of the century
one of the ladies of the house was about
to be married. Her port on, 10,0001., in hard
cash, had to be paid down. The lawyers only
awaited the fulfilment of that rather important item
of the contract in order to complete the settlement.
The money was not very easily forthcoming. Other
, circumstances had occurred to render public life at the
time less agreeable to the then representative of the
family, and he decided on selling his house pro-
, perty in Great Marlow to the highest bidder; who
proved to be Thomas Williams, hsq., of the Temple
Mills. _ .

The Williams party now declare that it was a part
and parcel of this contract that the Claytons should
relinquish the borough representation. This is
stoutly denied upon the other side. In the convey-
ance there is, of course, no mention of any such stipu-
lation, and bow far the arrangement was implied can,
at this distance of time, scarcely be decided. Nor
does it greatly matter, for the Reform Bill, if it did
little else, certainly abrogated agreements of that sort
wheresoever or howsoever they may have existed.
Mr. Williams represented Marlow until 1802. His
son, Mr. Owen Williams, eat for it all his lifetime,
and his grandson, Mr. Thomas Peers Williams, the
present representative, has been its member ever
since he came of age. The family added to their
influence in the locality by other purchases,
such as the property of the Borlase family,
from Sir John B. Warren. They were not,
however, permitted to hold their political position
without fighting for it. " Harleyford-hall," on the
north side of the river, looks frowningly down upon
, " the mills" opposite, and the Clayton' once or twice
san " the Coppers," as they contemptuously termed
them, nearly to the list gasp for the seat. These
straggles were, of course, most costly on both sides.
It was not only the expense of the election, but the
le:pease of preparing for it, fur, as every-one who cc-
copied a house and boiled a pot within the borough,
had a vote, the parties began to run up houses and
to give people pots to boil upon their hearths. And
then there was also the scrutiny at the pull, and the
inquiry after it ; so that, what with the contest
itself, and the head mosey to about 400 of the " free
and independent," an election at Great Marlow became
rather an expensive business. No small quantity of
copper must the Williamses have ameltecl for these
ambitious occasions.
Up to the period of the Reform Act the Williamses
had voted with the whigs. That measure, how-
ever, too deeply touched them, and they were thence.
forward to ne round in the ranks of the tories. This
was an important change for the Clayton interest.
Their hereditary predilections were Foxite, and the 3
now found themselves on the popular side, at a periel
of great political excitement. Mr. Owen Williams
chanced to die just before the parliament of 1831 was
dissolved, and Col. Clayton, now Sir William, came
in without opposition, as a reformer, by the acclama-
mations of the Scot and Lot.
In the parliaments of '32, '35, and '37, the Clay.
.....