Augher was enfranchised by a charter of 1614, 11 James I. Its officers were a burgomaster, 12 free burgesses and two serjeants-at-mace. It was jointly vested in the families of Moutray and Bunbury. Sometime in the seventeenth century the Bunbury part of the borough had passed to the Rev. Archibald Erskine, whose daughter and heiress, Mary, married William Richardson; and their son, Archibald Richardson (1780), was returned for Augher in 1692. William Richardson (1785) sat from 1737 until his death in 1755, and Archibald Richardson’s grandson, St George Richardson (1783), represented the borough from 1755 to 1760.

The Moutrays were at Favour Royal nearby from plantation times until the mid-twentieth century. James Moutray (1502) sat for Augher in the first parliament of William III (1692–3) and the first parliament of Queen Anne (1703–13), and James Moutray (1503) from 1761 to 1776. Tyrone was a plantation county and, with the exception of Clogher, the boroughs were plantation boroughs incorporated in the reign of James I. Augher was the smallest and most insignificant of these three boroughs. It was in the Clogher valley, about halfway between Ballygawley and Clogher. It comprised a few houses round a crossroads; Augher Castle, the home of the Richardson family, adjoined it.

The borough was bought in 1790 by the Marquess of Abercorn for £11,500 Irish (c. £10,600 English), and the arrangements were made by the Knox family (1180, 1188). At this time Augher was described as follows:

This close Borough, ever since the Revolution, was divided between the families of Moutray and Mervyn, till some years ago that the heiress of the latter family having married the late Colonel Rochfort (1805), a moiety of the representation devolved in her right to him but they both having died a few years since without issue, their share of the Borough became the property of the Richardson family, who at present possess it. The only electors here are the twelve Burgesses, who are chosen agreeably to the alternate recommendation of the proprietors, who are from thence obviously the namers of its representatives.

One of the seats is regularly sold, the present head of the Moutray family being a clergyman, the other is filled by Sir William Richardson (1788), the joint proprietor, who will again be chosen for it, whenever a dissolution of Parliament shall take place.

The estate of Augher belonged to the Mervyns, but Augher Castle and the Manor of Augher belonged to the Richardsons. There may have been an arrangement between these two families ,who were connected. In 1776 William Fortick (0800) and George Hamilton (0923) were returned; Hamilton purchased his seat from Moutray and Fortick from Mrs Rochfort Mervyn, who died shortly thereafter in June 1776. By 1783 Augher had ‘very few inhabitants. Patrons and proprietors, Mr Moutray and Mr Richardson.’ The terms of the Abercorn purchase were that ‘His Lordship gave Mr Moutray £5,500 and Sir William Richardson £6,000. However Richardson was to have one seat and Moutray another seat in the Parlt that was to meet the 20th of May 1790 and then prorogued to the 8th of June following.’

The MPs who were returned were Thomas Coghlan (0433) and Edmund Stanley (1978), ‘an expectant lawyer’, both of whom probably purchased. The hand-over appears to have taken place during the period of the election. The preliminaries of the purchase were signed in April 1790, the election took place on 11 May and the resignation of the burgesses about the same time. The transfer was completed on 29 September, when Moutray swore in Lord Abercorn’s nominee as burgomaster. Augher was disfranchised by the Act of Union; the £15,000 compensation was paid to the Marquess of Abercorn.

Clogher was an ancient city and the site of an episcopal see. It was probably a borough by prescription confirmed by a 1630 charter, 5 Chas I, which incorporated it with a portreeve and 12 burgesses. According to the memorial to the Commissioners of Union Compensations, from ‘time immemorial the citizens and inhabitants of the city of Clogher, have returned members to serve in parliament for the said city’. They were anxious that the compensation should be used for the economic benefit of the town.

There was also a memorial from the bishop, who hoped that the compensation would be used for the benefit of the church. Both stressed that they did not look for any personal gain, while the dean, chapter and prebendaries suggested the improvement of the cathedral and provision for clerical widows and orphans. Another memorial came from the Rev. Hugh Nevin, Seneschal of the city of Clogher, declaring that ‘In the year 1793 he was appointed Seneschal of the said city at a salary of thirty pounds a year, for the purpose of holding elections for returning Members to serve in parliament for the said city.’ His concern was that his salary of £30 p.a. would cease with the Union.

In 1790 it was stated that:

This Borough, or City as it sometimes is called, is of the most singular constitution, either by art or accident, of any of the kingdom. It in reality has no electors but when the Sheriff’s precept for choosing representatives is delivered to the Bishop, who resides in and is proprietor of the place, his Lordship issues a patent, appointing some confidential friend, generally his agent, chief magistrate and his principal domestics, Burgesses of this nominal city, who assemble in his hall, elect the person who he nominates and when the return is signed by them and this farcical mummery concluded, these puppets of the moment wait on the Bishop, and resign those offices to which his pleasure had exalted them.

From hence it is evident, that this Borough is private property and so completely united with the Bishop’s person, that it can hardly be separated from it. But some years since, Government, to their unspeakable surprise, meeting with a refractory ecclesiastic, threatened him to support the independent gentlemen of the County, in opening the Borough to the inhabitants of the Manor, who certainly were the original electors and to avoid so formidable a collision, the Bishop has, ever since, appointed those Members for Clogher, whom the minister of the day selects. Chosen by the mandate of a Bishop and nominated by a Lord Lieutenant’s Secretary, the public need not be informed what the parliamentary conduct of these pillars of the constitution invariably is and eternally will be.

When conflict arose in 1783, it was said that ‘The right of election supposed to be vested in and is claimed by the Protestant inhabitants at large but the Bishop of Clogher claims a patronage and by his influence and election manoeuvres, always returns the Members.’ As a bishop’s borough, its returns were supposed to be at the nomination of government, but in 1783 there had been local opposition to the newly appointed Bishop Hotham’s control of elections.

The bishop countered this unrest by supporting a popular candidate, his agent and the sitting MP, Thomas St George (1850), warning the Chief Secretary that if he was not put forward there was a risk of the borough splitting and both seats being lost to government. Government was not entirely sympathetic to the bishop’s predicament, and Hely-Hutchinson (1001) shocked the inexperienced Viceroy, Lord Northington, by suggesting that the Bishop of Clogher should be told that unless he brought in the government’s nominees for Clogher, the government would not help to pack any election committee that might be set up, and consequently resolutions of a personal nature might be voted against the bishop.

The government proposed Sackville Hamilton (0945) and Edward Bellingham Swan (2032). Hamilton was returned, but another place had to be found for Swan. This was the turbulent Volunteer election, and the bishop undoubtedly had problems. The situation quietened, St George died prematurely in 1785 and John Francis Cradock (0510), the Duke of Rutland’s aide-de-camp, was returned unopposed. The trouble flared up again at the time of the Union but this was probably at least partly due to the anti-Union machinations of Speaker Foster (0805), whose brother, William, was Bishop of Clogher from December 1795 until his death in November 1797.

At the 1797 election Thomas Burgh (0284) and Jonah Barrington (0087) were returned: both Speaker Foster’s protégés.387 Burgh was uncertain, but Barrington was definitely the Speaker’s man. Government requested and obtained their resignation, which was allowed under the 1793 Place Act. The ensuing by-election was disputed. Government through the bishop put up Richard Annesley (0048) and General William Gardiner (0844). Their return was successfully contested by anti-Unionists John King (1162) and Charles Ball (0081). Clogher was disfranchised by the Act of Union and the £15,000 compensation paid to the Trustees and Commissioners of First Fruits to promote the constant residence of the clergy.

Dungannon was enfranchised in 1613 by a charter of 10 James I. It was incorporated with a provost, 12 free burgesses, an indefinite class of freemen and no inferior offices. The estate belonged to the Chichesters, and Thomas Knox (1185), a successful Belfast merchant, settled there about 1692. He bought the estate of Dungannon including the parliamentary borough ‘worth near £1,000 per annum’ from the Earl of Chichester.

His nephew and namesake, Thomas Knox (1186), inherited the estate and he and his descendants controlled the borough throughout the century and, as it was not disfranchised at the Union, beyond into the united parliament. The electors throughout were the 13 burgesses. It was never sold, and in 1790 was described as follows:

This close Borough, whose only electors are the twelve Burgesses, is the property of Lord Welles (1187), whose recommendation ever fixes these electors in their offices and whose inclination therefore meets with no control in dictating their choice of representatives. It is never sold but some branches of his own family, or some friends of Administration, constantly are its representatives.

Strabane, another plantation borough, was enfranchised a few months before Dungannon by a 1612/3 charter of 10 James I. Its corporation comprised a provost, 12 free burgesses, a recorder, a chamberlain, two serjeants-at-mace, a constable, a beadle, and an inspector of the grain market. The Earl of Abercorn’s estates stretched across north Tyrone and into Donegal. Originally both Strabane and St Johnstown were Abercorn boroughs, but the Forwards managed to overturn the Abercorn interest in St Johnstown and gain control of the corporation and the borough.

At the Revolution the 4th Earl of Abercorn had supported the Stuarts and died fighting for James II. The family in fact had divided, and the 4th Earl’s brother and successor, the 5th Earl, inherited a weakened position. In 1692 a local man, Captain Oliver McCausland (1310), was returned and he represented Strabane until his death in 1723. He was definitely the choice of the corporation and not of the Abercorns.

During the reign of Queen Anne, the 6th Earl’s politics appear to have been ambivalent. When making plans for the election that would follow the queen’s death, Abercorn claimed that he and the corporation thought as one and that therefore whoever was recommended would be mutually acceptable. He told Edward Southwell (1962) that he did this ‘mistrusting whether I should be able to prevail on them to leave out Capt. McCausland who lives among them’.

Abercorn’s caution, and opaqueness, paid off as at the 1715 election, when many Tory borough proprietors had their influence temporarily overthrown, he survived and even managed to have a staunchly Tory candidate, the Hon. Richard Stewart (2007), returned. McCausland died in 1723 and Abercorn managed to interpret his arrangement with the borough so that vacancies were filled alternately; for example, on McCausland’s death he claimed the vacancy and returned his relative Henry Colley (0447), of Co. Kildare. A year later Colley died and the corporation nominated John McCausland (1308) to succeed him.

At the 1727 election Lord Abercorn nominated the Hon. Charles Hamilton (0916) and the corporation John McCausland, who died in 1729. Oliver McCausland (1311) was nominated in his place. The crisis came in 1733 when Oliver McCausland died. Lord Abercorn was by now an old man, and left his affairs in Strabane to the management of his son, Lord Paisley, with whom he was on bad terms. Paisley felt, against advice, that he had a compromise candidate in a distant relative, William Hamilton (0946) of Dunnamanagh, but Hamilton subsequently allied himself with the McCauslands. The Hon. Charles Hamilton (0916) sat for the entire parliament, although it is doubtful whether he attended at all: his brother George (0921), MP for St Johnstown since 1727, did not attend until 1753, when he came over from London to support their nephew (0265) in the famous Co. Armagh election petition.

The 6th Earl died in 1734 and his son a decade later. Disputes then broke out between the various interests in the corporation. It was not until the succession of the 8th Earl in 1744 that an effort was made to restore the Abercorns’ authority. Abercorn then resorted to litigation against the misdeeds of the corporation. At first he was unsuccessful; the courts decided that the time lapse had been too great. However, his opponents, McCausland and Hamilton of Dunnamanagh, were financially straitened and eventually they were worn down by Abercorn’s deeper purse. They tried to raise illegal tolls by extending the jurisdiction of Strabane. Also, they quarrelled with each other. The McCauslands sold one of the seats for Strabane to Robert Lowry (1267) for £1,650 in 1761.

Eventually Abercorn, Hamilton and McCausland came to a financial settlement, but not before Robert Lowry died and McCausland had managed to sell the seat to George Montgomery (1438) of Ballyconnell, Co. Cavan. Abercorn agreed to loan McCausland £1,000 and Hamilton £500 to pay off their most pressing creditors and to ensure Hamilton’s return in 1761. He also kept both of them as burgesses in Strabane. He rightly felt that he could afford to be generous, and was anxious to heal the divisions in the corporation. The citizens responded with a letter expressing their gratitude at the turn of events and their pleasure at once again being under his protection: they were more concerned with the economic than the political welfare of the town, over which they had no control anyway.

Strabane in 1783 was described as ‘populous town. 13 Burgesses. About 3,000 inhabitants. Patron and proprietor, Lord Abercorn.’ Apart from some unrealised but genuine fears during the height of the Volunteer movement, which was very strong in Co. Tyrone, and after the 1783 election, the rest of the 8th Earl’s relations with Strabane were peaceful. He was a very dutiful landlord but not really interested in politics, apart from consolidating and retaining what he felt were his inherited rights. Although largely an absentee, he was concerned with the welfare and development of the town, emphasising the potential importance of the patron and proprietor of a borough being the same person.

His nephew and successor, the 9th Earl and 1st Marquess of Abercorn, was quite different, being exceedingly anxious not only to retain but to expand his political rights. Nevertheless, he too was an exemplary borough patron, advancing most of the £11,858 required for the construction of the Strabane canal, which the Commisioners for Municipal Corporations in the early 1830s considered to be a major cause of the ‘remarkable improvement which has occurred in the markets of Strabane’. Strabane was disfranchised by the Act of Union; the £15,000 compensation was paid to the Marquess of Abercorn.