Downton (UK Parliament constituency)
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| Downton Borough constituency |
|
|---|---|
| Created: | 1295 |
| Abolished: | 1832 |
| Type: | House of Commons |
| Members: | two |
Downton was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
Contents |
[edit] History
The borough consisted of part of the parish of Downton, a small town six miles south of Salisbury. By the 19th century, only about half of the town was within the boundaries of the borough, and the more prosperous section was excluded: at the 1831 census the borough had 166 houses and a tax assessment of £70, whereas the whole town consisted of 314 houses, and was assessed at £273.
Downton was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote rested solely with the freeholders of 100 specified properties or "burgage tenements"; it was not necessary to be resident on the tenement, or even in the borough, to exercise this right. Indeed, some of the tenements could not realistically be occupied, and one was in the middle of a watercourse. At the time of the Great Reform Act, The Earl of Radnor (who supported the Reform) told the House of Lords that he owned 99 of the 100 tenements — which, of course, gave him absolute power in choosing both the borough's MPs. Earlier, in the 18th century, the Duncombe family had been the owners.
Corruption was rife at 18th century elections in Downton, and the House of Commons at one point proposed to "throw it into the hundred", that is to extend the boundaries to include the whole of the Hundred of Downton and to abolish the restrictive franchise — one of the earliest examples of such a proposal being debated; however, the proposal was not adopted.
Although there was supposedly a property qualification to become an MP (borough MPs were required to have an annual income of at least £300 derived from the ownership of land), this was routinely ignored or evaded, and Downton offers perhaps the only example of an election being re-run because the victor lacked the qualification. On 11 June 1826 the poet Southey was elected MP for Downton, but he did not take his seat when Parliament assembled in July, and in November wrote to the Speaker: "Having while I was on the continent been, without my knowledge, elected a burgess to serve in the present Parliament for the borough of Downton, it has become my duty to take the earliest opportunity of requesting you to inform the honourable House that I am not qualified to take a seat therein, inasmuch as I am not possessed of such an estate as is required by the Act passed in the ninth year of Queen Anne." A by-election had to be held to replace him.
By 1831 the parish of Downton had a population of around 450, too small to retain representation after the Reform Act, and yet in the original Reform Bill it was proposed that Downton should lose only one of its two members, its boundaries being extended to include Fordingbridge, over the county border in Hampshire. However, the Earl of Radnor pushed for its complete disfranchisement as it would be too difficult to make even an extended borough free of the influence of himself and his family. (He also made it a condition of becoming MP for Downton that its members should vote for its abolition.) As this abolition of a Whig-owned borough was useful to the Whig government in demonstrating their even-handedness, they backed an amendment to move Downton into Schedule A, the list of boroughs that were to lose both seats; but the government majority in the Commons fell to 30 in the vote on the amendment, the narrowest of all the votes on the details of the eventual Act.
The Reform Act being passed, Downton ceased to be represented from the general election of 1832, those of its residents who were qualified voting instead in the county constituency of Southern Wiltshire.
[edit] Members of Parliament
[edit] Before 1640
- 1584-1587: Thomas Wilkes
- 1586-1587: Thomas Gorges
- 1604-1611: Sir Carew Raleigh
- 1604-1611: William Stockman
- 1621-1622: Sir Carew Raleigh
- 1621-1622: Sir Thomas Hinton
- 1628-1629: Sir Benjamin Rudyerd
[edit] 1640–1832
| Year | First member | First party | Second member | Second party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| November 1640 | Sir Edward Griffin | Royalist | Seat vacant pending resolution of disputed election [1] |
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| February 1644 | Griffin disabled from sitting - seat vacant | |||||
| 1645 | Alexander Thistlethwaite | |||||
| December 1648 | Thistlethwaite excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant | |||||
| 1653 | Downton was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate | |||||
| January 1659 | Colonel Thomas Fitzjames | William Coles | ||||
| May 1659 | One seat vacant | Vacant pending resolution of disputed election | ||||
| January 1660 | Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper | |||||
| April 1660 | Thomas Fitzjames | William Coles | ||||
| May 1660 | Giles Eyre | John Elliott | ||||
| 1661 | Gilbert Raleigh | Walter Bockland | ||||
| 1670 | Sir Joseph Ashe | |||||
| 1675 | Henry Eyre | |||||
| 1678 | Maurice Bocland | |||||
| 1685 | Sir Charles Raleigh | |||||
| 1695 | Charles Duncombe | Tory | ||||
| February 1698 | Maurice Bocland | |||||
| May 1698 | John Eyre | |||||
| July 1698 | Carew Raleigh | |||||
| 1701 | Sir James Ashe | |||||
| 1702 | Sir Charles Duncombe | Tory | ||||
| 1705 | John Eyre | |||||
| 1711 | Thomas Duncombe | |||||
| 1713 | John Sawyer | |||||
| January 1715 | Charles Longueville | |||||
| December 1715 | Giles Eyre | |||||
| 1722 | John Verney | |||||
| 1734 | Anthony Duncombe | Joseph Windham-Ashe | ||||
| 1741 | John Verney | |||||
| 1742 | Joseph Windham-Ashe | |||||
| 1746 | George Proctor | |||||
| June 1747 | George Lyttelton [2] | |||||
| December 1747 | Richard Temple | |||||
| 1749 | Colonel Henry Vane | |||||
| 1751 | Thomas Duncombe | |||||
| 1753 | James Hayes | |||||
| 1754 | James Cope | |||||
| 1756 | Edward Poore | |||||
| 1757 | Charles Pratt | |||||
| 1761 | James Hayes | |||||
| 1762 | Thomas Pym Hales [3] | |||||
| 1768 | Thomas Duncombe | Richard Croftes | ||||
| 1771 | James Hayes | |||||
| 1774 [4] | Thomas Dummer | |||||
| 1775 | John Cooper | Sir Philip Hales | ||||
| September 1779 | Thomas Duncombe | |||||
| December 1779 | Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie [5] | |||||
| February 1780 | Robert Shafto | |||||
| September 1780 | Hon. Henry Seymour Conway | |||||
| 1784 | Hon. William Seymour Conway | |||||
| 1790 | Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie | Sir William Scott | ||||
| 1796 | Hon. Edward Bouverie | |||||
| 1801 | Viscount Folkestone | |||||
| 1802 | Hon. John William Ward | |||||
| June 1803 | The Lord de Blaquiere | |||||
| August 1803 | Viscount Marsham | |||||
| 1806 | Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie | Hon. Duncombe Pleydell-Bouverie | ||||
| 1807 | Sir Thomas Plumer | Tory | ||||
| 1812 | Charles Henry Bouverie | |||||
| 1813 | Sir Thomas Brooke-Pechell | Edward Golding | ||||
| 1818 | Viscount Folkestone | Sir William Scott | ||||
| 1819 | Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie | Sir Thomas Brooke-Pechell | ||||
| June 1826 | Thomas Grimston Bucknall Estcourt | Robert Southey[6] | ||||
| December 1826 | Hon. Bartholomew Bouverie | Alexander Powell | ||||
| 1830 | James Brougham | Charles Shaw-Lefevre | ||||
| May 1831 | Thomas Creevey | Whig | ||||
| July 1831 | Hon. Philip Pleydell-Bouverie | |||||
| 1832 | Constituency abolished | |||||
Notes
- ^ Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper was elected in 1640, but the election was disputed, and resolution of the dispute was delayed by the English Civil War. Cooper was not admitted to sit until January 1660.
- ^ Lyttelton was also elected for Okehampton, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Downton
- ^ Succeeded as baronet, December 1762
- ^ At the election of 1774, Duncombe and Dummer were initially declared the victors, but on petition it was decided that they had not been duly elected and their opponents, Cooper and Hales, were declared elected in their place
- ^ On petition it was decided that Bouverie had not been duly elected and his opponent, Shafto, was declared elected in his place
- ^ Southey was proposed and elected without his knowledge, and declined to sit on the grounds that he did not meet the property qualification to be a borough MP
[edit] References
- Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [1]
- 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]
- Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition, London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
- 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)
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs.
