Bedford (UK Parliament constituency)

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Bedford Borough constituency
Bedford shown within Bedfordshire, and Bedfordshire shown within England
Created:	1295, 1997
MP:	Patrick Hall
Party:	Labour
Type:	House of Commons
County:	Bedfordshire
EP constituency:	East of England

Bedford is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. It is a marginal seat between the Labour Party and the Conservatives.

Contents 1 Boundaries 1.1 Boundary review 2 History 3 Members of Parliament 3.1 1295-1660 3.2 1660-1885 3.3 1885-1983 3.4 1997-present 3.5 Notes 4 Election results 5 See also 6 References

[edit] Boundaries

The constituency covers the towns of Bedford and Kempston in Bedfordshire.

[edit] Boundary review

Following their review of parliamentary representation in Bedfordshire, the Boundary Commission for England made only minor changes to each of the existing constituencies.

The new Bedford seat will be formed from electoral wards entirely within the borough of Bedford:

• Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kempston East, Kempston North, Kempston South, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe, Queens Park.

[edit] History

Bedford was first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295. The constituency was originally a parliamentary borough electing two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons, and consisted of the five parishes making up the town of Bedford.

Before the Reform Act of 1832, the right to vote was exercised by all freemen and burgesses of the town (whether or not they lived within the borough boundaries) and by all householders who were not receiving alms. This was a fairly wide franchise for the period, but potentially subject to abuse since the Corporation of the borough had unlimited power to create freemen. The Corporation was usually under the influence of the Dukes of Bedford, but their influence usually fell well short of making Bedford a pocket borough.

In 1768 a majority of the corporation apparently fell out with the then Duke, and decided to free the borough from his influence. They elected a Huntingdonshire squire, Sir Robert Bernard, as Recorder of the borough, and made 500 new freemen, mostly Bernard's Huntingdonshire neighbours or tenants. As there were only 540 householders, this gave him the effective power to choose Bedford's MPs; at the next election the defeated candidates petitioned against the result, attempting to establish that so many non-residents should not be allowed to vote, but the Commons dismissed the petition and confirmed the right of all the freemen, however created, to vote.

Bernard cemented his control with the creation of hundreds of further freemen in the next few years; at around the same period he lent the Corporation £950, and it is not unreasonable to assume this was payment for services rendered. However, in 1789, the young Duke of Bedford managed to regain the Corporation's loyalty, and had 350 of his own retainers made freeman.

Even at other periods, the influence of the Dukes of Bedford seems sometimes to have been more nominal than real. In the 1750s and 1760s, before Bernard's intervention, there was generally an amicable agreement that the Duke should nominate one MP and the Corporation (representing the interests of the town) the other; but it seems that on occasion the Duke had to be flexible to retain the semblance of local deference towards him, and that his "nominee" had in reality been imposed upon him. Nor was the outcome invariably successfully predetermined: at the 1830 election the result was decided by a single vote - the defeated candidate being Lord John Russell, who was not only one of the Whig leaders but The Duke of Bedford's son.

In 1831, the population of the borough was 6,959, and contained 1,491 houses. This was sufficient for Bedford to retain both its MPs under the Great Reform Act, with its boundaries unaltered. The reformed franchise introduced in 1832 gave the borough 1,572 inhabitants qualified to vote. The town was growing, and Bedford retained its borough status until the 1918 election, although from 1885 its representation was reduced to a single member. On the eve of the First World War its population was just under 40,000, of whom 6,500 could vote.

In 1918 the borough was abolished, but town's name was applied to the county constituency into which it was placed. The new constituency (strictly speaking The Bedford division of Bedfordshire) covered the northern end of the county and included Kempston and Eaton Socon together with the surrounding rural area. A boundary change which came into effect at the 1950 election reduced its size somewhat, part of the Bedford Rural District including Eaton Socon being transferred to the Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

In 1983, further boundary changes took Kempston out of the constituency, and its name was changed to Bedfordshire North, although it was recognisably still the same constituency and Bedford itself was still much its largest component. The following boundary review, effective from the 1997 general election, restored the Bedford name.

[edit] Members of Parliament

[edit] 1295-1660

• Constituency created (1295)
• 1295: John Cullebere, Simon de Holand

[edit] 1660-1885

Year			First member	First party	Second member	Second party
		1660	Sir Samuel Luke		Humphrey Winch
		1661	Richard Taylor		John Kelyng
		1663			Paulet St John
		1667	Sir William Beecher
		1679	Sir William Francklyn
		1685	Sir Anthony Chester, Bt		Thomas Christie
		1689	Thomas Hillersden
		1695			William Farrer
		March 1698	William Spencer
		July 1698			Sir Thomas Alston, Bt
		January 1701			Samuel Rolt
		November 1701			William Farrer
		1702			Edward Carteret
		1705	William Farrer		Sir Philip Monoux, Bt
		1707			William Hillersden
		1710			John Cater
		1713	Samuel Rolt
		1715	William Farrer		John Thurlow Brace
		1722			George Huxley
		1725			John Thurlow Brace
		1727	John Orlebar
		1728			James Metcalfe
		1731			Sir Jeremy Vanacker Sambrooke, Bt
		1734	Samuel Ongley
		1740			Sir Boteler Chernock, Bt
		1747	Thomas Gore		John Offley
		1754	Francis Herne		Robert Henley-Ongley
		1761			Richard Vernon	Whig
		1768	Samuel Whitbread	Tory
		1774	Sir William Wake, Bt	Tory	Robert Sparrow[1]	Tory
		1775			Samuel Whitbread	Whig
		1784	William MacDowall Colhoun	Tory
		1790			Samuel Whitbread	Whig
		1802	William Lee-Antonie	Whig
		1812	Lord George Russell	Whig
		1815			Hon. William Waldegrave	Whig
		1818			William Henry Whitbread	Whig
		1830	Frederick Polhill	Tory
		1832	Samuel Crawley	Whig
		1835			Frederick Polhill	Conservative
		1837	Henry Stuart [2]	Conservative
		1838	Samuel Crawley	Whig
		1841	Henry Stuart	Conservative
		1847			Sir Harry Verney, Bt	Whig
		1852			Samuel Whitbread	Liberal
		1854	William Stuart	Conservative
		1857	Thomas Barnard	Liberal
		1859	William Stuart	Conservative
		1868	James Howard	Liberal
		1874	Frederick Charles Polhill-Turner	Conservative
		1880	Charles Magniac	Liberal

• Reduced to one member (1885)

[edit] 1885-1983

Year		Member	Party
	1885	Samuel Whitbread	Liberal
	1895	Charles Guy Pym	Conservative
	1906	Percy Barlow	Liberal
	January 1910	Walter Annis Attenborough	Conservative
	December 1910	Frederick George Kellaway	Liberal
	1922	Sir Sydney Richard Wells, Bt	Conservative
	1945	Thomas Skeffington-Lodge	Labour
	1950	Christopher Soames	Conservative
	1966	Brian Parkyn	Labour
	1970	Trevor Skeet	Conservative

• Constituency abolished (1983)

[edit] 1997-present

• Constituency recreated (1997)

Year		Member	Party
	1997	Patrick Hall	Labour

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Unseated on petition; Whitbread declared elected
2. ^ At the election of 1837, Stuart was initially declared elected, but on petition his election was declared void and after scrutiny of the votes his opponent Crawley was declared elected instead

[edit] Election results

General Election 2005: Bedford
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Patrick Hall	17,557	41.7	−6.2
	Conservative	Richard Fuller	14,174	33.7	+0.9
	Liberal Democrat	Michael Headley	9,063	21.5	+5.7
	UK Independence	Peter Conquest	995	2.4	+1.3
	Independent	John McCready	283	0.7	N/A
Majority			3,383	8.0
Turnout			42,072	59.6	−0.3
	Labour hold		Swing	−3.5

General Election 2001: Bedford
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Patrick Hall	19,454	47.9	-2.7
	Conservative	Nicky Attenborough	13,297	32.8	-0.9
	Liberal Democrat	Michael Headley	6,425	15.8	+3.5
	Independent	Richard Rawlins	973	2.4	N/A
	UK Independence	Jennifer Lo Bianco	430	1.1	N/A
Majority			6,157	15.1
Turnout			40,579	59.9	-13.6
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1997: Bedford
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Patrick Hall	24,774	50.6	N/A
	Conservative	Robert Blackman	16,474	33.7	N/A
	Liberal Democrat	Christopher Noyce	6,044	12.3	N/A
	Referendum Party	P. Conquest	1,503	3.1	N/A
	Natural Law	P. Saunders	149	0.3	N/A
Majority			8,300		N/A
Turnout				73.5	N/A
	Labour hold		Swing	N/A

[edit] See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Bedfordshire

[edit] References

• Beatson, Robert (1807). A chronological register of both houses of the British Parliament, Volume II. 
• F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
• F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949" (Glasgow: Political Reference Publications, 1969)
• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• 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)
• Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Frederic A Youngs, jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979)
• The Constitutional Year Book for 1913 (London: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 1913)
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page

Constituencies in the East of England
Conservative	Billericay | Braintree | Brentwood and Ongar | Broxbourne | Bury St Edmunds | Castle Point | Central Suffolk and North Ipswich | Epping Forest | Harwich | Hemel Hempstead | Hertford and Stortford | Hertsmere | Hitchin and Harpenden | Huntingdon | Maldon and East Chelmsford | Mid Bedfordshire | Mid Norfolk | North Essex | North East Bedfordshire | North East Cambridgeshire | North East Hertfordshire | North West Cambridgeshire | North West Norfolk | Peterborough | Rayleigh | Rochford and Southend East | Saffron Walden | Southend West | South Cambridgeshire | South East Cambridgeshire | South Norfolk | South Suffolk | South West Bedfordshire | South West Hertfordshire | South West Norfolk | St Albans | Suffolk Coastal | Welwyn Hatfield | West Chelmsford | West Suffolk
Labour	Basildon | Bedford | Great Yarmouth | Harlow | Ipswich | Luton North | Luton South | Norwich North | Norwich South | Stevenage | Thurrock | Watford | Waveney
Liberal Democrat	Cambridge | Colchester | North Norfolk
East of England European constituency: Conservative (3) | UKIP (2) | Labour (1) | Liberal Democrats (1)