Walpole's Constituency: King's Lynn

In 1702 Robert Walpole, the future Prime Minister of Great Britain, moved from his Castle Rising constituency to become one of the M.P.s for the nearby freeman borough of King's Lynn. For the next forty years Lynn's handful of voters returned him as their Parliamentary representative, losing him only when Walpole's political decline led him to abandon the House of Commons for the House of Lords. This long attachment demonstrated not only Lynn's liking for a close connection with a great man, but also Walpole's security among his own folk. The Walpoles were Norfolk gentry: Walpole created his great house at Houghton not very far from Lynn. They were also linked to the merchants who dominated Lynn's affairs by political interest and even by marriage. Nor was Walpole being returned by an insignificant constituency: King's Lynn in Walpole's time was an important and prosperous port.