Heytesbury (UK Parliament constituency)

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Heytesbury
Borough constituency
Created: 1449
Abolished: 1832
Type: House of Commons
Members: two

Heytesbury was a parliamentary borough in Wiltshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1449 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

Contents

[edit] History

The borough consisted of a small part of the village of Heytesbury, once a market town, in the south-west of Wiltshire. (In 1831, when the population of the whole village was 1,394, the borough had a population of only 81.) Already a small settlement, Heytesbury burned to the ground in 1765, but this did not affect its right to return MPs; the village was subsequently rebuilt.

Heytesbury was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote was reserved to the householders of specific properties or "burgage tenements" within the borough; there were 26 of these tenements by the time of the Reform Act, and all had been owned by the Ashe A'Court family since the 17th century, giving them total control of the choice of MPs. (Shortly before the Reform Act, the head of the family, Sir William Ashe A'Court, was elevated to a peerage as Lord Heytesbury.) By 1832 it was more than half a century since the last contested election.

Heytesbury was abolished as a constituency by the Reform Act, those of its residents who were qualified voting thereafter in the Southern Wiltshire county division.

[edit] Members of Parliament

[edit] 1449-1640

  • 1604-1611: Sir William Eyre
  • 1604-1611: Walter Gawen
  • 1621-1622: Sir Thomas Thynne
  • 1621-1622: Sir Henry Ludlow
This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] 1640-1832

Year First member First party Second member Second party
November 1640 Edward Ashe Parliamentarian Thomas Moore Parliamentarian
December 1648 Moore excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant
1653 Heytesbury was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659 John Ashe Samuel Ashe
May 1659 Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660 Thomas Moore John Jolliffe
1661 Sir Charles Berkeley
1668 William Ashe Whig
1679 Edward Ashe
1689 William Sacheverell Whig
1690 William Trenchard
1695 Edward Ashe
1701 Sir Edward Ernle
1702 William Monson
1708 William Ashe
1713 Pierce A'Court
1715 William Ashe
1722 Pierce A'Court
1725 Lord Charles Cavendish Whig
1727 Horatio Townshend
1734 Pierce A'Court-Ashe
1747 William Ashe
1751 William A'Court [1]
1768 Charles FitzRoy-Scudamore
1774 Hon. William Gordon
September 1780 William Eden [2]
December 1780 Francis Burton
1781 William Pierce Ashe A'Court
1784 William Eden [3]
1790 Michael Angelo Taylor
1791 The Earl of Barrymore
1793 Charles Rose Ellis
1793 The Viscount Clifden
1796 Sir John Fleming Leicester
February 1802 William Wickham
July 1802 Charles Abbot [4] Viscount Kirkwall
December 1802 Dr Charles Moore
1806 Charles Abbot [5] Sir William Pierce Ashe A'Court
January 1807 Dr Charles Moore Michael Symes
May 1807 Viscount Fitzharris
1812 Samuel Hood [6] Charles Duncombe
1818 George James Welbore Agar-Ellis William Henry John Scott
March 1820 Edward Henry A'Court Charles Ashe A'Court
August 1820 Henry Handley
1826 Henry Stafford Northcote
1830 Sir George Staunton
1832 Constituency abolished

Notes

  1. ^ William A'Court Ashe from 1768
  2. ^ Eden was also elected for Woodstock, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Heytesbury in this Parliament
  3. ^ Created The Lord Auckland (in the Peerage of Ireland), September 1789
  4. ^ Abbot was also elected for Woodstock, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Heytesbury
  5. ^ Abbot was also elected for Oxford University, which he chose to represent, and did not sit for Heytesbury
  6. ^ Succeeded as The Lord Bridport (in the Peerage of Ireland), May 1814

[edit] References

  • Robert Beatson, "A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament" (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [1]
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page
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