- Newtown (UK Parliament constituency)
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Not to be confused with Newton (UK Parliament constituency).
Newtown Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons County Isle of Wight Major settlements Newtown 15841832 –Number of members Two Replaced by Isle of Wight Newtown was a parliamentary borough located in Newtown on the Isle of Wight, which was represented in the House of Commons of England then of the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament (MPs), elected by the bloc vote system.
The borough was abolished in the Great Reform Act of 1832, and from the 1832 general election its territory was included in the new county constituency of Isle of Wight.
Contents
History
Newtown, located on the large natural harbour on the north-western coast of the Isle of Wight, was the first borough established in the county. A French raid in 1377, that destroyed much of the town as well as other Island settlements, sealed its permanent decline. By the middle of the sixteenth century it was a small settlement long eclipsed by the more easily defended town of Newport. In an attempt to stimulate economic development, Elizabeth I awarded the town two parliamentary seats.
Newtown was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote was vested solely in the owners of a specified number of properties or "burgage tenements". At the time of the Great Reform Act of 1832 there were 39 burgage tenements, held by 23 burgesses; however, most of these held only life grants. (It was common practice for life grants to be made to friends of the proprietors so as to ensure that the full voting power could be exercised; if these nominees failed to vote as expected they could be ejected and replaced by somebody more reliable before the next election. These voters were often non-resident - and indeed, it could hardly be otherwise, for although the borough contained 39 properties to which the right to vote was attached there were only 14 houses.) Unlike many rotten boroughs, no single landowner controlled a majority of the burgages, the reversionary right in them belonging to three families (Barrington, Holmes and Anderson-Pelham), so divided that any two had a majority over the third. Elections in the borough consequently required careful management and sometimes considerable expenditure to achieve the desired result. In the 1750s and 1760s, the arrangement was that one of the two seats was considered to be in the gift of the Barrington family, while Thomas Holmes negotiated the election of the government's nominee for the other, unless he wanted it for a member of the Holmes family.
By 1831, the borough had a population of just 68, and it was disfranchised the following year by the Reform Act.
Members of Parliament
1584-1640
Parliament First member Second member 1584 William Meux Robert Redge [1] 1586 Richard Huyshe Robert Dillington [1] 1588 Richard Huyshe Richard Sutton [1] 1593 Thomas Dudley Richard Browne [1] 1597 Silvanus Scory Thomas Crompton [1] 1601 Robert Wroth Robert Cotton [1] 1604 Sir John Stanhope ennobled
and replaced 1605 by William MervisThomas Wilson 1614 William Hickford Sir Henry Barkely 1621-1622 John Ferrone Sir Thomas Barrington 1624 Sir Thomas Barrington Sir Gilbert Gerard, Bt sat for Middlesex
and replaced by George Gerard1625 Sir Thomas Barrington Thomas Muller 1626 Sir Thomas Barrington Thomas Muller 1628-1629 Sir Thomas Barrington, 2nd Baronet Robert Barrington 1629–1640 No Parliaments summoned 1640-1832
Year 1st Member 1st Party 2nd Member 2nd Party April 1640 John Meux [2] Royalist Hon. Nicholas Weston November 1640 Hon. Nicholas Weston Royalist August 1642 Weston disabled from sitting - seat vacant February 1644 Meux disabled from sitting - seat vacant 1645 Sir John Barrington John Bulkeley December 1648 Barrington and Bulkeley excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant 1653 Newtown was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate January 1659 Serjeant John Maynard William Laurence May 1659 Not represented in the restored Rump April 1660 Sir John Barrington Sir Henry Worsley 1666 Sir Robert Worsley 1677 Admiral Sir John Holmes February 1679 John Churchill August 1679 Lemuel Kingdon 1681 Daniel Finch 1685 Thomas Done William Blathwayt Whig 1689 The Earl of Ranelagh 1695 James Worsley 1698 Thomas Hopson 1701 Joseph Dudley 1702 John Leigh 1705 James Worsley Henry Worsley 1715 Sir Robert Worsley 1722 William Stephens Charles Worsley 1727[3] James Worsley Thomas Holmes Whig 1729 Charles Armand Powlett Sir John Barrington 1734 James Worsley Thomas Holmes Whig 1741 Sir John Barrington Henry Holmes 1747 Maurice Bocland 1754 Harcourt Powell April 1775 Charles Ambler December 1775 Edward Meux Worsley 1780 John Barrington[4] 1782 Henry Dundas Tory 1783 Richard Pepper Arden April 1784 James Worsley August 1784 Mark Gregory 1790 Sir Richard Worsley Whig 1793 George Canning Tory 1796 Sir Richard Worsley Whig Charles Shaw-Lefevre Whig 1801 Sir Edward Law Whig May 1802 Ewan Law July 1802 Sir Robert Barclay Whig Charles Chapman Whig 1803 James Paull Whig 1806 George Canning Tory 1807 Barrington Pope Blachford Tory Dudley Long North Whig 1808 Hon. George Anderson-Pelham Whig 1816 Hudson Gurney Whig 1820 Dudley Long North Whig 1821 Charles Compton Cavendish Whig 1830 Hon. Charles Anderson-Pelham Whig 1831 Sir William Horne Whig 1832 Constituency abolished Notes
- ^ a b c d e f "History of Parliament". History of Parliament. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/constituencies/newton-iow. Retrieved 2011-10-18].
- ^ Created a baronet, December 1641
- ^ At the election of 1727 Worsley and Holmes beat Barrington and Powlett, but on petition the result was reversed as a result of a dispute over the franchise
- ^ Succeeded to a baronetcy as Sir John Barrington in 1792
References
- D Brunton & D H Pennington, “Members of the Long Parliament” (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
- Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
- D Englefield, J Seaton & I White, Facts About the British Prime Ministers (London: Mansell, 1995)
- Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition, London: Macmillan , 1961)
- J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
- Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "N" (part 2)
See also
Categories:- Politics of the Isle of Wight
- Parliamentary constituencies in South East England (historic)
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1584
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies disestablished in 1832
- Rotten boroughs
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