West Looe (UK Parliament constituency)

UK former constituency infobox
Name = West Looe
Type = Borough
Year = 1553
Abolition = 1832
members = two

West Looe was a rotten borough represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected two Members of Parliament (MP) by the bloc vote system of election. It was disenfranchised in the Reform Act 1832.

History

The borough consisted of the town of West Looe in Cornwall, connected by bridge across the River Looe to East Looe, which was also a parliamentary borough. From the reign of Edward VI, West Looe and East Looe were jointly a borough, returning two members of Parliament; however, under Queen Elizabeth the two towns were separated, and each thereafter returned two members except between 1654 and 1658, when they were once again represented jointly, by one member of the First and Second Protectorate Parliaments. At this early period, West Looe was sometimes alternatively referred to as Portby.

The right of election was in the Mayor and members of the Corporation, providing they lived in the town. This corporation, which seems to have been have been set up for the purpose, consisted of 12 "capital burgesses" and an indefinite number of "free burgesses". There were just 12 registered electors in 1816, and 19 in 1831. At the time of the Great Reform Act, the population of the borough was 593.

In practice, this meant that the power to choose the MPs was in the hands of the local landowner or "proprietor", making West Looe (like East Looe) one of the most notorious of the rotten boroughs. For many years at the time of the Reform Act, West Looe had been controlled by the Buller family (which also controlled East Looe and Saltash), and many members of the family sat for the borough in the House of Commons.

After the Reform Act 1832 disenfranchised the borough, it reverted to being represented as part of the county constituency covering its area. Cornwall was divided into two divisions in 1832, East Cornwall (with its place of election at Bodmin) and West Cornwall (which voted at Truro). West Looe was located in East Cornwall.

Members of Parliament

1552-1660

* 1552: J. Ashley and W. Morice
* 1553: A. Nevel, R. Clere, W. Bendlus, R. Mounson
* 1554: C. Heygsham, A. Gilbert, W. St. Aubyn, J. St. Clere, O. Becket, J. Carminowe
* 1558: J. Carminowe
* 1562: J. Fouler, J. Young
* 1570: Clement Throckmorton, J. Fynneux [http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=t33ZkDL3juQC&pg=PA31&lpg=PA31&dq=%22Topographical+and+historical+sketches+of+the+boroughs+of+East+and+West+Looe%22+gilbert&source=web&ots=2efGL5JvjD&sig=zX3P6Gb1rkwgpHYXqA2puj8lJGw&hl=en#PPP8,M1 Thomas Bond's "Topographical and historical sketches of the boroughs of East and West Looe, in the county of Cornwall" (1823) - available online on GoogleBooks] . Pages 237 to 242 list Members for West Looe, up to 1820.]
* 1571: W. Hammond, W Audley
* 1572: John Awdeley
* 1585: R. Champernoune, J. Hammond
* 1588: M. Patteson, R. Saunderson
* 1592: J Shelbury, H. Beeston
* 1596: R. Hitcham, Sir . Lennard, knt.
* 1600: R. Hare, R. Verney
* 1603: W. Wade
* 1620: H. Finch, C. Harris
* 1625: John Wolstenholme, E. Thomas
* 1626: John Wolstenholme, J. Rudhall
* 1627: E. Thomas, J. Parker

Long Parliament
* 1640-1648: Thomas Arundell (Parliamentarian) - "died November 1648"
* 1640-1644: Henry Killigrew (Royalist) - "disabled to sit, January 1644"
* 1647-1648: John Arundell - "excluded in Pride's Purge, December 1648"

"West Looe was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament."

First Protectorate Parliament (Single member representing East Looe and West Looe)
* 1654-1655: ?

Second Protectorate Parliament (Single member representing East Looe and West Looe)
* 1656-1658: ?

Third Protectorate Parliament
* 1659: Dr William Petty, W.Whitelock

"'Long Parliament (restored)
* 1659-1660: ?

1660-1832

Notes

Elections

Election box begin
title=General Election 1754: West Looe (2 seats)Election box candidate with party link
party = Non Partisan
candidate = John Frederick
votes = Unopposed
percentage = "N/A"
change = "N/A"Election box candidate with party link
party = Non Partisan
candidate = William Noel
votes = Unopposed
percentage = "N/A"
change = "N/A"

ee also

* East Looe (UK Parliament constituency)
* MPs elected in the British general election, 1754
* Unreformed House of Commons

References

* Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke, "The House of Commons 1754-1790" (London: HMSO, 1964)
* D Brunton & D H Pennington, "Members of the Long Parliament" (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
* J E Neale, "The Elizabethan House of Commons" (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
* 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)
*Rayment
* [http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=36964 British History Online - list of speakers in the Parliaments of 1656 and 1658-9]