Historically, Retford was notorious as one of the most corrupt boroughs - a so-called 'rotten' borough - in England and was considered to be in the gift of the Duke of Newcastle. There were vigorous debates in Parliament over whether to transfer Retford's franchise to one of the larger unrepresented towns such as Manchester or Birmingham. Hansard records that during the House of Lords debates on the Disfranchisement Bill, the town had an active committee, led by a couple of attorneys and meeting at the Turk's Head Inn, who were trying to make the borough seem even more corrupt than it was to ensure its extinction. One of the committee members was later seen wearing a gold watch, apparently presented in gratitude by well-wishers in Birmingham. Viscount Howick objected to the disenfranchisement of Retford not on the basis that the accusations of corruption were not true, but that it punished the innocent as well as the guilty and ignored the fact that many boroughs were equally corrupt.