Description:Thomas Gilbert’s Letter to Lord Gower, 25th December 1754: Election Expenses
Thomas Gilbert was a land agent who worked for the Leveson-Gower family. Gilbert became responsible for managing the Gower interest in Lichfield in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Following the expensive election campaigns of the late 1740s, Gilbert conducted an investigation into the election expenses and attempted to produce a scheme for more economical election success. The Sutherland Papers include a number of letters written by Gilbert to Earl Gower concerning his findings. These letters tell us about how election campaigns were run in the mid eighteenth century.
In his first letter to Lord Gower, Gilbert describes his examinations of the Lichfield election accounts as ‘a Work of more time & Trouble than I expected’.
Reporting on his plans to manage the interest more economically, Gilbert remarks that he saw the Gower –Anson interest ‘in such a View, that with a tolerable degree of Management for the future no Opposition can hurt you or put you to much expense’
Disapproving of the large amounts expended on entertainment at local public houses, Gilbert advocated the purchase of property to secure votes. He writes that success would be ensured for Lord Gower’s party ‘by the addition of strength…from the purchases’ of property with the added advantage of being ‘able to avoid the great expence of Ale Houses’.