- Malton (UK Parliament constituency)
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Not to be confused with Maldon (UK Parliament constituency).
Malton Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons 1640–1885 Malton, also called New Malton, was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England in 1295 and 1298, and again from 1640, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885. It was represented by two Members of Parliament until 1868, among them the political philosopher Edmund Burke, and by one member from 1868 to 1885.
The constituency was divided between the new Thirsk and Malton division of the North Riding of Yorkshire and the Buckrose division of the East Riding of Yorkshire from 1885.
Contents
Boundaries
The constituency consisted of parts of the St Leonard's and St Michael's parishes of New Malton in the North Riding until the Great Reform Act of 1832; the borough at that point included 791 houses and had a population of 4,173 in the 1831 census. The Reform Act expanded the boundaries to include the whole of those two parishes, as well as that of Old Malton and of the adjoining town of Norton in the East Riding, increasing the population to 7,192 and encompassing 1,401 houses.
Franchise
The right of election in Malton was vested in the scot and lot householders of the borough, of whom there were about 800 in 1832. In practice the seats were generally in the gift of the landowner, Earl Fitzwilliam (and were frequently held by one of that family, often by the heir to the Earldom who had the courtesy title Viscount Milton); at an earlier period the borough was similarly dominated by the Watson-Wentworth family, and was used as a form of government patronage when the Marquess of Rockingham was Prime Minister.
Members of Parliament
MPs 1640–1868
Year First member First party Second member Second party November 1640 Thomas Hebblethwaite Royalist Henry Cholmley Parliamentarian November 1644 Hebblethwaite disabled to sit - seat vacant 1645 Richard Darley December 1648 Cholmley excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant 1653 Malton was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate January 1659 [1] Philip Howard George Marwood May 1659 Richard Darley One seat vacant April 1660 Thomas Hebblethwaite Philip Howard April (?) 1661 Thomas Danby December 1661 Sir Thomas Gower 1668 William Palmes 1673 James Hebblethwaite 1679 Sir Watkinson Payler 1685 Hon. Thomas Fairfax Thomas Worsley 1689 William Palmes Junto Whig Sir William Strickland Junto Whig 1698 Thomas Worsley 1701 Sir William Strickland Junto Whig 1708 William Strickland Whig 1713 Thomas Watson-Wentworth 1715 Thomas Watson-Wentworth (the younger) 1722 Sir William Strickland Whig 1724 by-election Henry Finch 1727 Wardell Westby 1731 by-election Sir William Wentworth May 1741 Lord James Cavendish December 1741 by-election John Mostyn 1761 by-election Savile Finch 1768 The Viscount Downe 1774 Edmund Burke[2] Whig 1775 by-election William Weddell Whig 1780 by-election Edmund Burke Whig April 1784 Sir Thomas Gascoigne Whig August 1784 by-election William Weddell Whig 1792 by-election Hon. George Damer[3] Whig 1794 by-election Richard Burke (d. 1794) Whig 1795 by-election William Baldwin Whig 1798 by-election Bryan Cooke Whig 1798 by-election Charles Lawrence Dundas Whig 1805 by-election Henry Grattan Whig 1806 Viscount Milton Whig 1807 Lord Headley[4] Tory Robert Lawrence Dundas Whig March 1808 by-election Bryan Cooke Whig 1812 John Ramsden Whig Viscount Duncannon Whig 1826 Viscount Normanby Canningite Tory 1830 Sir James Scarlett Whig[5] April 1831 by-election Francis Jeffrey [6] Whig May 1831 Henry Gally Knight Jul 1831 by-election William Cavendish Sep. 1831 by-election Charles Pepys Whig 1832 William Fitzwilliam [7] Whig 1833 by-election John Ramsden Whig 1836 by-election John Childers Whig 1837 by-election Viscount Milton [8] Whig 1841 Evelyn Denison Whig 1846 by-election Viscount Milton Whig 1847 John Childers Whig 1852 Hon. Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam Whig/Liberal 1857 James Brown Whig/Liberal 1868 Representation reduced to one member MPs 1868–1885
Year Member Party 1868 Hon. Charles Wentworth-FitzWilliam Liberal 1885 constituency abolished Notes
- ^ The Returning Officer made a double return after a dispute over the franchise: the Committee of Elections and Privileges ruled in favour of Howard and Marwood, and against their opponents Luke Robinson and Robert Lilburne on the grounds that Old Malton as well as New Malton was entitled to vote. (House of Commons Journal, 7 March 1659 [1])
- ^ In 1774 Burke was also elected for Bristol, and did not sit for Malton in this Parliament
- ^ Styled Viscount Milton from 1792
- ^ Dundas and Headley won in a contested election in which Bryan Cooke came third. On petition, Headley's election was declared void and a by-election held at which Cooke was elected.
- ^ Scarlett took the Chiltern Hundreds in April 1831, after switching from the Whigs to the Tories
- ^ Jeffrey was also elected for Perth District of Burghs at the 1831 general election and chose to represent that constituency
- ^ Fitzwilliam became Viscount Milton in 1833 when his father succeeded as Earl Fitzwilliam, and resigned to contest his father's Northamptonshire, Northern seat)
- ^ Not the same Viscount Milton who held the seat in 1806-7 or in 1833
References
- Michael Brock, "The Great Reform Act" (London: Hutchinson, 1973)
- 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) [2]
- F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
- 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)
- Robert Walcott, "English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century" (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956)
- Frederic A Youngs, jr, "Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II" (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991)
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "M" (part 1)
Categories:- History of North Yorkshire
- Parliamentary constituencies in Yorkshire and the Humber (historic)
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1640
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies disestablished in 1885
- United Kingdom historical constituency stubs
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