 The Tory versus Whig party division, which had originated in the Exclusion Bill debates in the seventeenth century, was almost extinct by 1754.Whilst some members were still identifiable as being of a Tory or Whig persuasion, few contested elections turned on party cries.The hotly contested Oxfordshire and Reading elections were amongst the few where party in the old sense mattered at all and 1754 was the last such election in those areas.