Before the Great Reform Act of 1832, the right to vote was vested in the Mayor and Corporation (consisting of 11 aldermen and 12 burgesses). For much of the previous century the borough was "managed" for the government by the Holmes family,Page 25, Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957) meaning that ministers could generally secure the election of their favoured candidates, but often only at the expense of considerable "gratuities" to the voters – in 1754, this apparently amounted to a payment of £600 for each candidate. The borough consisted of the parish of Newport and of Castle Hold in the parish of St Nicholas, thereby excluding that part of the town which extended over the boundary into Carisbrooke parish; this gave the borough a population of 4,398 in 1831. The 1832 reforms extended the borough to take in the rest of the town, raising the population to 6,700, though the electorate was still only 421.
