- Dartmouth (UK Parliament constituency)
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Dartmouth Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons 1351–1868 Number of members two (1351-1832); one (1832-1868) Dartmouth, also at some times called Clifton, Dartmouth and Hardness, was a parliamentary borough in Devon which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons in 1298 and to the Commons of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom from 1351 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1868, when the borough was disfranchised.
Contents
History
Clifton, Dartmouth and Hardness were three towns clustered round the mouth of the River Dart in southern Devon; all three are within the modern town of Dartmouth. The borough as first represented in 1298 seems to have included only the town of Dartmouth, but at the next return of members in 1350-1351 it also included Clifton; Hardness is first mentioned in 1553, though may have been included earlier. The boundaries by the 19th century included the whole of Dartmouth St Petrox and St Saviour parishes, and part of Townstall parish.
Dartmouth by the end of the 18th century was a prosperous small port, depending mainly on fishing but also with some shipbuilding interests; but the bulk of the inhabitants had little voice in the choice of its Members of Parliament. After a decision by Parliament that followed a disputed election in 1689, the right to vote in Dartmouth rested with the Corporation, which appointed its own successors, and with the freemen of the borough, who were made by the Corporation. This amounted to a total of 71 voters in 1832, although only 53 of these were resident; virtually all were officers of the custom house or other government employees.
This franchise meant that once control was gained of the borough it was easy to retain indefinitely. Around the turn of the 18th century, the Herne family had almost total control, but in the mid-to-late 18th and early 19th century, control had passed to the government and Dartmouth was considered a safe seat for the party in power, returning one member at the nomination of the Treasury and one of the Admiralty. (Even this control had its limits however - Namier and Brooke quote letters to show that when a vacancy arose in 1757, the government had to abandon their original intention of nominating a soldier, and instead acceded to the corporation's demand for a naval candidate.) The Holdsworth family managed the government's interests in the borough, and generally had first refusal on one of the seats. Indeed, the Holdsworths were sufficiently influential to defy the government on occasion, as in 1780 when Arthur Holdsworth arranged the re-election of the popular but opposition-supporting naval hero Lord Howe to one seat while taking the other for himself - no government candidates stood against them, and both Howe and Holdsworth voted with the opposition in the new Parliament.
At the time of the Great Reform Act, the 1831 census showed that there were 611 houses in the borough but a population of 4,447. Dartmouth was allowed to keep one of its two MPs, and the boundaries were extended slightly to include the whole of Townstall parish and part of Stoke Fleming, bringing the population up to 4,662.
The constituency was abolished at the next boundary revision, which came into effect at the general election of 1868, after which the towns were part of the Southern Devon county division.
Members of Parliament
1351-1640
Parliament First member Second member 1386 Richard Whitelegh Robert More [1] 1388 (Feb) William Burlestone John Lacche [1] 1388 (Sep) William Bast Roger Scoce [1] 1390 (Jan) John Hawley I Thomas Asshenden I [1] 1390 (Nov) 1391 John William John Brasuter [1] 1393 John Ellemede John Hawley I [1] 1394 William Damiet John Hawley I [1] 1395 John Bosom Edmund Arnold [1] 1397 (Jan) John Bosom William Glover [1] 1397 (Sep) 1399 1401 1402 John Hawley I Ralph North [1] 1404 (Jan) 1404 (Oct) 1406 John Foxley John White [1] 1407 Henry Bremeler John Pille [1] 1410 John Hawley II Edmund [Arnold] [1] 1411 John Hawley II John Corp [1] 1413 (Feb) 1413 (May) John Hawley II John Corp [1] 1414 (Apr) 1414 (Nov) John Hawley II Edmund Arnold [1] 1415/6 (Mar) Edmund Arnold Walter Wodeland [1] 1416 (Oct) 1417 1419 1420 Thomas Asshenden II Walter Wodeland [1] 1421 (May) John Hawley II Thomas Hankyn [1] 1421 (Dec) John Burley Henry Sadeler [1] No names known [2] 1529 John Trevanion William Holland,
repl. 1534 by Nicholas Langmede [2]1536 ? 1539 John Ridgeway William Holland [2] 1542 John Anthony William Holland [2] 1545 Nicholas Bacon John Ridgeway [2] 1547 Sir Peter Carew Richard Duke [2] 1553 (Mar) Nicholas Adams alias Bodrugan Gilbert Roupe [2] 1553 (Oct) Michael Adams Michael Roope Parliament of 1554 Nicholas Adams Edward Sture Parliament of 1554-1555 John Peter Nicholas Enis Parliament of 1555 Sir John St Leger James Courtenay Parliament of 1558 George Southcote Thomas Gurney Parliament of 1559 ? [3] Parliament of 1563-1567 Sir John More John Lovell Parliament of 1571 John Vaughan Thomas Gurney Parliament of 1572-1581 William Cardinal Thomas Gurney (died)
By-election William ListerParliament of 1584-1585 Hugh Vaughan Thomas Ridgeway Parliament of 1586-1587 Robert Peter George Cary Parliament of 1588-1589 Robert Papworth Richard Drewe Parliament of 1593 Nicholas Sapman Hugh Holland Parliament of 1597-1598 Charles Lambert (?)[4] ? Parliament of 1601 John Traherne William Bastard Parliament of 1604-1611 Thomas Holland Thomas Gurney Addled Parliament (1614) Parliament of 1621-1622 Robert Matthew William Nyell Happy Parliament (1624-1625) Richard Matthew William Plumley Useless Parliament (1625) Roger Matthew John Upton Parliament of 1625-1626 Parliament of 1628-1629 No Parliament summoned 1629-1640 1640-1832
Year First member First party Second member Second party April 1640 Andrew Voysey John Upton [5] November 1640 Roger Matthew Royalist 1641 Samuel Browne Parliamentarian February 1644 Matthew disabled from sitting - seat vacant 1646 Thomas Boone December 1648 Browne excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant 1653 Dartmouth was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament 1654 Thomas Boone Dartmouth had only one seat in the First and
Second Parliaments of the Protectorate1656 Edward Hopkins January 1659 Thomas Boone Colonel John Clarke May 1659 Not represented in the restored Rump 1660 John Frederick John Hale 1661 William Harbord Thomas Southcote 1664 Thomas Kendall 1667 Walter Yonge 1670 William Gould 1673 Josiah Child February 1679 Sir Nathaniel Herne John Upton August 1679 Edward Yarde 1685 Roger Pomeroy Arthur Farwell January 1689 Charles Boone William Hayne September 1689 George Booth [6] November 1689 Sir Joseph Herne 1698 Frederick Herne 1699 ? [7] 1701 Nathaniel Herne 1713 Sir William Drake 1714 John Fownes 1715 Joseph Herne 1722 George Treby Thomas Martyn 1727 Walter Carey Whig 1742 Lord Archibald Hamilton 1747 John Jeffreys Whig 1757 Captain the Hon. Richard Howe [8] 1766 Richard Hopkins 1780 Arthur Holdsworth 1782 Charles Brett Rockingham Whig 1784 Richard Hopkins 1787 Edmund Bastard 1790 John Charles Villiers 1802 Arthur Howe Holdsworth 1812 Edmund Pollexfen Bastard Tory 1816 John Bastard 1820 Charles Milner Ricketts 1822 James Hamilton Stanhope 1825 Sir John Hutton Cooper 1829 Arthur Howe Holdsworth 1832 Representation reduced to one member 1832-1868
Year Member Party 1832 (Sir) John Seale [9] Whig 1844 Joseph Somes Conservative 1845 George Moffatt Whig 1852 Sir Thomas Herbert Conservative 1857 James Caird Whig April 1859 Edward Wyndham Harrington Schenley [10] Liberal August 1859 John Dunn Conservative 1860 John Hardy Conservative 1868 Constituency abolished Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t "History of Parliament". History of Parliament Trust. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/constituencies/dartmouth. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
- ^ a b c d e f g "History of Parlaiment". History of Parlaiment Trust. http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/constituencies/dartmouth. Retrieved 2011-11-12.
- ^ Browne Willis gives Southcote's name as re-elected in 1559 with a query against it, and does not list a second member
- ^ Browne Willis gives Lambert's name with a query against it, and does not list a second member
- ^ Died September 1641
- ^ Booth was originally declared elected, but on petition the House of Commons decided that some of his voters had not validly been made Freemen, and were therefore ineligible to vote; Booth's opponent, Herne, was consequently declared elected in his place. (House of Commons Journal, 28 November 1689 [1])
- ^ Sir Joseph Herne died 26 February 1699. There is apparently no record of a writ for a by-election being issued, and the seat may have remained vacant for the remainder of the Parliament
- ^ Succeeded as the 4th Viscount Howe (in the Peerage of Ireland, July 1758. Rear Admiral 1770, Vice Admiral 1775, Admiral 1782
- ^ Created a baronet, July 1838
- ^ On petition, Schenley's election was declared void and a writ for a by-election issued
References
- Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [2]
- 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) [3]
- Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
- Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
- Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)
- T H B Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
- J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
- Robert Walcott, English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956)
- Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria (London, 1750) [4]
- Frederic A Youngs, jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979)
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 1)
Categories:- Parliamentary constituencies in Devon (historic)
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies established in 1351
- United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies disestablished in 1868
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