A later member for Appleby was Viscount Howick, subsequently (as Earl Grey) the Prime Minister whose administration passed the Great Reform Act of 1832; but Grey's history as a former MP for the town did not save it from losing both its members under the Act. Appleby was regarded as a classic example of a pocket borough, completely in the control of its owners who were also the major local landowners, and with a population of only 1,233 at the 1831 census unlikely to be freed from their influence even by widening the franchise. Nevertheless, as the only county town to be disfranchised, Appleby was one of the more controversial cases in the debates on the reform bill, the opposition making unsuccessful attempts to amend the bill so as to save at least one of its MPs.