History of Parliament Biography

A detailed account of Fuller's career as Member of Parliament written by Brian Murphy and R. G. Thorne appears on the History of Parliament website here.

From this article, one can gain insight into how Fuller was percieved by those who interacted with him as well as a better understanding of Fuller's political views and actions as an MP.

"At his election he got into an argument with the radical John Frost, and gave thanks ‘with the most vile theatrical twang rolling about even much less gracefully than Punch: people stared’. Two years before, Lady Holland had reported him ‘good-natured’ and added, ‘His vulgar bluntness excited much mirth; he thought the laugh was raised by his waggery, so was delighted’.1 For nearly nine years the same illusion sustained him in the House."

Source http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/fuller-john-1756-1834

Was Jack Fuller a smuggler?

"Some say…an intriguing theory recently put forward by one of the foremost authorities on Sussex is that those follies were part of a great smuggling enterprise. Mad Jack, with money, personality and intelligence, used the Observatory as a look-out post; it commands wide coastal views. Belle Tout is said to have served the same purpose, though it could have served no purpose at all during those frequent mists. The follies were on smugglers’ routes; they were hollow, and the seamen hid the goods there to be collected by the land men. Presumably the follies, being comparatively few in number, were only occasionally used as hiding-places, or the excise men would have had a much simpler task. Yet how does the Needle fit into that theory? The main object was to get the goods away quickly – not to run up the highest Down in the area for a cache that might or might not be there. Perhaps the Needle’s role was merely negative – a genuine folly adding weight to the deception about the others.

Mad Jack was in the habit of travelling in a heavily built barouche, carrying pistols and food and attended by at least one outrider, ostensibly as protection against footpads. A man who so fully enjoyed his wealth would not take kindly to the prospect of its being snatched way. Was it also for protection against rival smuggling gangs? It could hardly have been fro protection against the excise en. In his social position as landowner, philanthropist and Member of Parliament, a confrontation with the law would entail the loss of much, if not all he most valued. "

Source: Curious Sussex, by Mary Delorme – ISBN 07090-2970-5
St Edmundsbury Press Limited, 1987, pp 72 -73.

"History Hunger" & Perch Hill Farm

I have just finished Perch Hill: A New Life by Adam Nicolson.
I found myself rereading entire pages simply to savour Nicolson's descriptions of the High Weald. He writes regarding his curiousity about the history of the 90 acre farm and its previous tennants:

"The written documents run out too early and are no good anyway, a list of men and, from time to time the tax they paid. 1832: Edmund Goldsmith is the tenant of John Fuller, known to history as Mad Jack, a rabid Tory, Member of Parliament, sugar-and-iron millionaire, folly-building eccentric, patron of Turner, buried in Brightling churchyard in a pyramid where he is said, erroneously, to be sitting down to a final gargantuan dinner at a cast-iron table. That's what we know about Jack Fuller. We don't know anything about Edmund Goldsmith. "pp. 121

Photos by Wealden artist Paul Jackson, with kind permission.

John Fuller and William Cobbett

"Fuller continued to show a keen interest in the state of farming and on January 3, 1822, he attended a meeting of over 300 farmers and landed gentlemen at The George Hotel in Battle, who had gathered to protest over the 'distressed state of agricultural interest', which they believed had been brought about by the Corn Laws of 1815. Fuller put forward several resolutions, bemoaning 'the fallen state of the landed interest' and pleaded for some form of relief. Present at the meetings was William Cobbett, radical journalist, Member of Parliament and author of Rural Rides, who delivered a supportive speech to the gathering, in which he sympathised with their cause but felt there was little could be done to change the situation. The Corn Laws were not abolished until 1846."
Fuller of Sussex: A Georgian squire, by Geoff Hutchinson, pp. 92.

So we establish that Fuller met Cobbett although Hutchinson does not give any sources. He is also getting ahead of himself as Cobbett, despite a number of attempts, was not a member of Parliament until 1832. Rural Rides was not published in full until 1830 although he had started the rides in the early 1820's and they were serialised in his publication The Register.
We know from the Penguin edition of Rural Rides that Cobbett was elsewhere in Sussex at about this time: "The younger [John] Ellman was also a Sussex farmer, but angered Cobbett by calling for tougher corn laws and by expressing his loyalty to the government. There was a near outbreak of fisticuffs between Cobbett and farmers at a meeting of Sussex farmers at which the younger Ellman was prominent."
This meeting took place at Lewes on 9 January 1882, a week after the meeting at Battle. In fact there were two events - a meeting at the County Hall followed by a dinner at the Star Inn. Cobbett had been warned not to go to Lewes where his criticisms of the farmers would not be welcome. Being Cobbett he liked nothing better than to face down his critics. The meeting at County Hall passed off relatively peacefully. Cobbett was urged to attend the dinner - "...being pressed to go, I finally went." He met with hostility and a proposal that he "be put out of the room!" Despite this Cobbett rose to speak pointing out forcefully the plight of the farm labourers and facing down his opponents. He was exultant.
"...but Cobbett rejoiced in his achievements: 'I beat the cocks upon their own dung-hill', he wrote privately. Eight years later, during the Captain Swing revolts, the Sussex landholders came to see that in rejecting Cobbett in 1822 they had rejected the wants and aspirations of an entire class of agricultural workers." See Dyck, Cobbett and Rural Popular Culture, pp. 70-72.

What happened at Brightling during the Swing Riots? Does anybody know?

Mad Jack Fuller's Obituary

Gentleman's Magazine
July 1834 pp 106 - 107

JOHN FULLER, Esq.
April 11. In Devonshire place, aged
77, John Fuller, Esq. of Rose Hill, Sus-
sex, formerly M.P. for that county.
This gentleman was the son of John
Rose Fuller, esq. He succeeded in es-
tate his uncle Rose Fuller, Esq. M.P.
for Rye (ob. 1777) who was the younger
son of Mr. Thomas Fuller, the purchaser
of the estate, and builder of the house,
Rose Hill, by Elizabeth, daughter of Mr.
Rose, of Jamaica.
Mr. Fuller was first elected to Parlia-
ment for Southampton in Feb. 1780, and
having been rechosen at the general elec-
tion of the same year, he sat for that town
until the dissolution in 1784. He served
the office of Sheriff of Sussex in 1797.
In 1801, on the elevation to the peer-
age of the Rt. Hon. T. Pelham (by the
title of Earl of Chichester), Mr. Fuller
became a candidate for the representation
of the county of Sussex, and was success-
ful after an arduous contest with Col.
Sergison, which lasted sixteen days, and
cost him 20,000 l. in addition to a sub-
scription purse for 30,000 l. made by the
county. He was re-chosen in 1802, 1806,
and 1807, and sat until the dissolution of
1812. He generally voted with Mr. Fox;
and is said to have indignantly refused
the offer of a peerage from Mr. Pitt,
deeming it a trial of his integrity. It is
related that he threw the Minister's
into the fire, in the presence of a large
party of friends, declaring "I was born
Jack Fuller, and Jack Fuller I will die!"
In 1810, during the inquiry on the
Walcheren expedition, Mr. Fuller got
embroiled in an insane contest with the
supreme authority of the House of Com-
mons. On the 22d of Feb. he was re-
peatedly called to order; but on the 27th
no appeal from the Speaker or remon-
strances from his friends, could restrain
him within the bounds of propriety.
The House was in consequence resumed
from the Committee into which it had of
resolved itself, and Mr. Fuller was
immediately voted into the custody of
the Sergeant at Arms; when he vio-
lently rushed into the House, vehemently
asserting that the Speaker, whom he
designated as "the little insignificant
fellow in the wig," was the servant of the
House, and had no authority over the
Members, who had converted him into
their Master. He was at length carried
off the field by the united efforts of four
of the messengers of the House. He
remained two days in custody; and was
then discharged with a very severe repri-
mand from the Speaker, who threatened
him with summary expulsion on a repe-
tition of his offence. After this memo-
rable scene, he was not returned to ano-
ther Parliament.
Mr. Fuller was distinguished through
life by much eccentricity; but it was
mingled with a kind heart, that displayed
itself in deeds of princely munificence.
The favourite object of his liberality was
the Royal Institution, where he first
founded a Professorship of Electricity,
in the year 182.., and subsequently, a
few weeks before his death, a Professor-
ship of Comparative Anatomy and Phy-
siology. He also gave the Institution at
the same time the sum of 3000 l. to accu-
mulate in the funds; making the sum
total of his benefactions amount to
10,000 l. On the 24th of March last the
members were specially convened to
thank him; and it was resolved that a
age of the Rt. Hon. T. Pelham (by the
subscription should be made for a Bust
of their munificent Patron, to be placed
in a prominent situation in this Institution.
Mr. Fuller erected an observatory at
his house of Rose Hill About twenty
years ago it was expected that he would
promote the publication of a history of the
three Eastern rapes of Sussex; for which
it was supposed that the large collections
of the Rev. Mr. Hayley, which were in
his possession, would furnish very exten-
sive materials.
Mr. Fuller has died extremely rich.
The bulk of his fortune, consisting of
estates in Sussex and in the island of
Jamaica, are left to Augustus Elliot
Fuller, esq. brother to Capt. Fuller,
R.N. and a nephew of the deceased, as
also of Lord Heathfield. The estates in
London are left to Sir Peregrine Palmer
Acland, Bart. another nephew. He has
also left very numerous legacies. His
remains were taken to the family vault at
Brightling in Sussex for interment, at-
tended out of London by twenty-four pri-
vate carriages.

Corrections by Annette Lloyd Thomas: Jack Fuller's Father was the Rev. Henry Fuller (1713-1761). Rose Fuller (1708-1777) was the son of John Fuller (1680-1745) and Elizabeth Rose (1681-1726). Thomas Fuller (1655-1720) bought the mansion at Brightling c. 1697. He left the property to his nephew John Fuller (1680-1745) who named the estate Rose Hill in honour of his wife Elizabeth Rose, the daughter of Dr. Fulke Rose of Jamaica.
Jack Fuller founded the Professorship of Chemistry in 1833 (not of Electricity) and the Professorship of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in early 1834. The observatory at Brightling is not at the mansion at Rose Hill but nearby on the Brightling-Burwash road. Augustus Elliot Fuller was not technically a nephew - he was the son of Jack Fuller's first cousin John Trayton Fuller.
Sir Peregrine Palmer Acland was the son of Jack Fuller's sister Elizabeth and her husband Sir John Palmer Acland.

Extract from "Sussex" by S.P.B. Mains

Pages 172-173. First Printed 1929. The Richard Press Ltd.

We turn south here, leaving the Tunbridge Wells-Hastings railway on the east of us, and cross or wander along the valley of the Dudwell, a tributary of the Rother, in order to visit Brightling Beacon (646 feet) and Dallington. The Early English church of Brightling contains a bust of John Fuller, the patron of J.M.W. Turner. There is a fifteenth-century brass and fourteenth century stained glass. On the Beacon Fuller built an obelisk, called the Needle, and an observatory. When he was offered a peerage, Fuller said, "I was born Jack Fuller and Jack Fuller I'll die." He founded the Fullerian professorship and bought Bodiam Castle when it stood in some danger of being destroyed. He had a reputation for swearing in Parliament and once referred to the Speaker as "the insignificant little fellow in a wig." He armed his coachmen and footmen with swords and pistols whenever he drove to London.
Dallington has a stone spire set on its solid church tower, which bears the emblem of the Pelham buckle.

Michael Faraday and John Fuller

"Up to 1833 Faraday was bringing the forces of nature in subjection to man on a salary of only £100 per annum, with house, coals, and candles, as the funds of the Institution would not at that time afford more; but among the sedate habitues of the place was a tall, jovial gentleman, who lounged to the lectures in his old fashioned blue coat and brass buttons, gray smalls, and white stockings, who was a munificent friend in need. This was John Fuller, a member of Parliament. He founded a Professorship of Chemistry, with an endowment that brings in nearly £100 a year, and gave the first appointment to Faraday for life. When the Institution became richer, his income was increased; and when, on account of the infirmities of age, he could no longer investigate, lecture, or keep accounts, the managers insisted on his still retaining in name his official connection with the place, with his salary and his residence there. Nor, indeed, could they well have acted otherwise; for, though the Royal Institution afforded in the first instance a congenial soil for the budding powers of Faraday, his growth soon became its strength, and eventually the blooming of his genius, and the fruit it bore, were the ornament and glory of the Institution."

Extracted from: MICHAEL FARADAY by J. H. GLADSTONE, PH.D., F.R.S.
NEW YORK HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 1872
More here.

A Peerage Scorned

"There is a popular story that at some time during his political career, Fuller was offered a peerage by William Pitt [the Younger], presumably either to encourage his support or to get rid of him. Fuller is said to have declined the offer adding: 'I was born Jack Fuller and Jack Fuller I'll die.' Perhaps it was around this time [1783] the offer was made, although the two men were to meet up again in Parliament in later years."

Source: Hutchinson, Geoff, Fuller of Sussex: A Georgian squire (Hastings, Sussex: M & W Morgan, 1993, revised 1997) ISBN 0-9519936-6-6, Page 38

The Fuller Parliamentary Tradition

John Fuller (1680-1745) was MP for the county of Sussex in 1715. He was a Tory and by 1734 considered one of the three main leaders of the opposition in the county to the dominant Whig The Duke of Newcastle.
The other opponents were Sir Cecil Bishop and Thomas Sergison (John 'Mad Jack' Fuller would later face Colonel Warden Sergison as opponent in the 1807 election). Fuller and Bishop teamed up to contest the election of June 1734 hoping to win the two Sussex county seats - they were unsuccessful.
The result:
Henry Pelham 2271 votes
James Butler 2053
Sir Cecil Bishop 1704
John Fuller 1581
They were facing powerful opponents; they were heavily outspent; and the Whigs also had a concerted registration drive with a "prodigious number of false" votes according to Fuller.
The Honourable Henry Pelham (1695-1754) went on to become Prime Minister 1743-54. He was the brother of Thomas Pelham-Holles, first Duke of Newcastle, (1693-1768). His brother's interest had already provided him a seat in Parliament, first for the small borough of Seaford in 1717, then for the county of Sussex in 1722.
Newcastle succeeded his brother Henry Pelham as Prime Minister on the latter's death in 1754. He was Prime Minister 1754-6 and 1757-62. During his second term in office, he headed a coalition with William Pitt the Elder, until Pitt's resignation in 1761.

Sources:
Crossley, D.W., & Saville, R.V., The Fuller Letters: Guns, Slaves and Finance 1728-1755 (S.R.S.
[Sussex Record Society] 1991) ISBN 0-85445-037-8

www.xrefer.com

The West India lobby

John Fuller married Elizabeth Rose in July 1703 - she was the daughter of Dr Fulke Rose. She had inherited plantations in Jamaica. Here started the Fuller Jamaica connection - sugar, rum, slavery and all.
After the death of John Fuller in 1745, his son John (1706-1755) took a more pragmatic approach to the Whig administration - after all the Fuller family fortune depended on a strong navy to control the routes to the West Indies and orders for cannon for that navy.
When his brother Rose Fuller returned from Jamaica in 1755 he became MP for Rye and later was a key figure in the West India lobby in Parliament. This grouping, also known as the Jamaica interest, consisted of sixty or seventy members who protected the slave trade and profited from the sugar business.
But who were these people? To be continued....

Votes for Sale

William Cobbett stood for Parliament in Honiton in 1806 - his autobiography gives an explicit description of the corruption in parliamentary elections in the early 1800s:

Now, as to the state of this borough, who shall describe it?
Who shall describe the gulph wherein have been swallowed the fortunes
of so many ancient and respectable families? There was, the electors
would tell you, no bribery. They took a certain sum of money each,
according to their consequence; 'but this', they said, 'came in the
shape of a reward after the election and, therefore, the oath might be
safely taken'. Considered as a question of morality, how contemptible
this subterfuge was need hardly be noticed; but, to say the truth, they
did not deceive themselves, and I must do them the justice to say, that
they were not very anxious to deceive anybody else. They told you,
flatly and plainly, that the money which they obtained for their votes,
was absolutely necessary to enable them to live; that, without it, they
could not pay their rents; and that, from election to election, poor
men ran up scores at the shops, and were trusted by the shopkeepers,
expressly upon the credit of the ensuing election; and that, thus, the
whole of the inhabitants of the borough, the whole of the persons who
returned two of the members to every parliament, were bound together in
an indissoluble chain of venality.
The poorest of the people made a sort of pun upon my name as
descriptive of my non-bribing principles, and moulded their sentiments
into a cry of: 'Bread and Cheese, and no empty Cupboard'; and some of
them in a very serious and mild manner, remonstrated with me upon my
endeavour to deprive them of the profits of their vote, or, in their
own phrase, ' to take the bread out of poor people's mouths'.

Georgian Lewes By Colin Brent

[extracted from Georgian Lewes, 1714-1830, The Heyday of a County Town by Colin Brent]
"Less edifying was the contest at Lewes in 1807. Between Tuesday 12 May and Thursday 28 May 5019 freeholders cast 4333 votes for the Westerner Charles Wyndham, 2530 for John Fuller of Brightling, and 2473 for Colonel Sergison of Cuckfield. The Easterners clashed over Emancipation for Roman Catholics and West Indian slaves. The High-Tory Folly-building Fuller opposed both. The moment the polling ended, the Mobility tore apart the hustings by the Sessions House and carried the fragments away, claiming "immemorial" custom. It greeted the result - Sergison being the "popular" candidate, by tossing rotten eggs into the balconied Great Room at the White Hart, Fuller's campaign headquarters. Sergison then spoke from a window of the Star, assuring his partisans that a Sheriff's scrutiny of the poll would overturn Fuller's trivial majority. So they dragged the Colonel and his carriage in triumph up the High Street, to rendezvous at the barracks with Whig confederates marching in from Brighton. Though the Sheriff refused a scrutiny, Fuller's victory had proved expensive. As well as the No Popery favours, he paid for almost 2000 dinners at the White Hart, and as many at the Dorset Arms, "an East Country House" popular with freeholders from Hastings Rape."

Mad Jack in Parliament

1780 (January) bye-election
John Fuller, elected Member of Parliament, for Southampton Borough at age 22.
His opponent was Cranley Kerby, the majority 124.
1780 General Election
John Fuller re-elected - the result:
Fuller 264
Sloane 249
Fleming 237
The first two candidates were elected to Parliament i.e. Fuller and Sloane.
1784 General Election: John Fuller did not stand for re-election.
1801 John Fuller elected Member of Parliament for Sussex - need election result
1802 John Fuller re-elected - need election result
1806 John Fuller re-elected - need election result
1807 General Election
Hon Charles W Wyndham - 4,333 (elected - the only candidate for the Western Division)
John Fuller - 2,530 (elected for the Eastern Division)
Colonel Warden Sergison - 2,478
The 'Slavery versus Popery' election. John Fuller might have faced George Shiffner
at the election, who was proposed and supported by the same interest as Sergison,
in favour of Catholic emancipation, but he withdrew. Fuller and Shiffner were distantly
related and Shiffner had originally invited Mad Jack to stand in 1801.
After one of the most scurrilous campaigns and a close result accusations flew about
vote rigging. Sergison petitioned the High Sherrif for redress and subsequently
petitioned Parliament. Both were refused.
1810 February 27 - A (drunken) incident with the Speaker in Parliament
leads to him being seized by the Serjeant at Arms and to public disgrace.
1812 General Election: John Fuller did not stand for re-election.

Sources:
"Fuller of Sussex, A Georgian Squire" - Geoff Hutchinson
East Sussex Record Office
"John Fuller Esquire of Rose-Hill" - James Lawrie

Who was John "Mad Jack" Fuller?

The eccentric John Mad Jack Fuller, squire of Brightling, is a fascinating topic of research for me. Born in 1757 Fuller was in some ways a typical English squire and Member of Parliament in the Georgian Period. However, his penchant for building follies and his ebullient personality are the stuff of which legends are made. He was a patron of the arts and sciences who made valuable contributions to the community.

In 1777, at the age of 20, Jack Fuller inherited his family's wealth and mansion, Rose Hill at Brightling, East Sussex. He served 4 terms in parliament and was on more than one occasion removed from the House for raucous behaviour. Fuller was a huge man who wore his hair in a pig tail. He never married and had no children.

THE FOLLIES

He is buried in a 25 ft tall pyramid in the churchyard of St. Thomas of Canterbury church, a structure he had built 24 years before he died in 1834. Legend had it that he was interred in full evening dress, sitting upright at a table set with a roast chicken and a bottle of claret. Renovations to the pyramid in the 1980's put this tale to rest.

It is also said that when in London, Fuller bet that he could see the spire of Dallington church from his house. Upon returning home he found that this was not the case and sent a group of men out to erect a conical building designed to resemble the spire. Needless to say, Fuller won the bet and the Sugar Loaf as it has come to be called still stands.

Fuller's Observatory was furnished with state of the art astronomy equipment. It is now a private home. The Observatory, and quite possibly the Greek Rotunda Temple, was designed by noted architect Sir Robert Smirke who also designed the British Museum in London among other important commissions. The Obelisk or Brightling Needle, another of Fuller's legacies, is 65 ft high and is most likely a monument to celebrate Wellington's victory over Napoleon in 1815.

PHILANTHROPY

Among Fuller's lasting contributions to the community are: the Belle Tout lighthouse at Beachy Head and the barrel organ at Brightling church which is now the largest of its kind in full operation in Britain today. He is also credited with saving Bodiam castle from demolition as he purchased it from a firm of builders and had it restored. The Tower, another odd structure, is said to have been built by Fuller so that he could keep an eye on the progress of workmen at Bodiam. Fuller was a founding member of the Royal Institution and created two professorships which have endured into the 21st Century.