Lincolnshire (UK Parliament constituency)

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Lincolnshire
County constituency
Created: 1290
Abolished: 1832
Type: House of Commons
Members: two

Lincolnshire was a county constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which returned two Members of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons from 1290 until 1832.

Contents

[edit] History

The constituency consisted of the historic county of Lincolnshire, excluding the city of Lincoln which had the status of a county in its itself after 1409. (Although Lincolnshire contained four other boroughs, Boston, Grantham, Great Grimsby and Stamford, each of which which elected two MPs in its own right for part of the period when Lincolnshire was a constituency, these were not excluded from the county constituency, and owning property within the borough could confer a vote at the county election. This was not the case, though, for Lincoln.)

As in other county constituencies the franchise between 1430 and 1832 was defined by the Forty Shilling Freeholder Act, which gave the right to vote to every man who possessed freehold property within the county valued at £2 or more per year for the purposes of land tax; it was not necessary for the freeholder to occupy his land, nor even in later years to be resident in the county at all.

Except during the period of the Commonwealth, Lincolnshire has two MPs elected by the bloc vote method, under which each voter had two votes. In the nominated Barebones Parliament, five members represented Lincolnshire. In the First and Second Parliaments of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, however, there was a general redistribution of seats and Lincolnshire elected ten members, while each of the boroughs apart from Lincoln had their representation reduced to a single MP. The traditional arrangements were restored from 1659.

At the time of the Great Reform Act in 1832, Lincolnshire had a population of approximately 317,000, though only 5,391 electors voted at the last contested election, a by-election in 1823.

Elections were held at a single polling place, Lincoln, and voters from the rest of the county had to travel to the county town to exercise their franchise. It was normal for voters to expect the candidates for whom they voted to meet their expenses in travelling to the poll, making the cost of a contested election substantial. Contested elections were therefore rare, potential candidates preferring to canvass support beforehand and usually not insisting on a vote being taken unless they were confident of winning; at all but 4 of the 29 general elections between 1701 and 1832, Lincolnshire's two MPs were elected unopposed.

The constituency was abolished in 1832 by the Great Reform Act, being divided into two two-member county divisions, Northern Lincolnshire (or The Parts of Lindsey) and Southern Lincolnshire (or The Parts of Kesteven and Holland).

[edit] Members of Parliament

[edit] MPs 1290-1640

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

[edit] MPs 1640-1832

Election 1st Member 1st Party 2nd Member 2nd Party
April 1640 Sir John Wray Parliamentarian Sir Edward Hussey
November 1640 Sir Edward Ayscough Parliamentarian
December 1648 Wray and Ayscough excluded in Pride's Purge - both seats vacant
1653 Lincolnshire was represented by five MPs in the Barebones Parliament: Sir William Brownlow, Richard Cust, Barnaby Bowtel, Humphrey Walcot, William Thompson
1654 Lincolnshire was represented by ten MPs in the First Protectorate Parliament: Edward Rossiter, Thomas Hall, Thomas Lister, Charles Hall, Captain Francis Fiennes, (Sir) John Wray, Colonel Thomas Hatcher, William Woolley, William Savile, William Welby
1656 Lincolnshire was represented by ten MPs in the Second Protectorate Parliament: Edward Rossiter, Thomas Hall, Thomas Lister, Charles Hall, Captain Francis Fiennes, Colonel Thomas Hatcher, William Woolley, William Savile, William Welby, Sir Charles Hussey
January 1659 Edward Rossiter Colonel Thomas Hatcher
May 1659 Not represented in the restored Rump
1660 Edward Rossiter George Saunderson, Viscount Castleton
Apr 1661 Sir Charles Hussey, 1st Bt.
Jan 1665 Sir Robert Carr, 3rd Bt.
Mar 1685 Sir Thomas Hussey, 2nd Bt.
Aug 1698 Charles Dymoke George Whichcot
Jan 1701 Sir John Thorold, 4th Bt.
Feb 1703 Lewis Dymoke
May 1705 George Whichcot Albemarle Bertie
May 1708 Peregrine Bertie, Baron Willoughby de Eresby
Oct 1710 Lewis Dymoke
Sep 1713 Sir Willoughby Hickman, 3rd Bt.
Feb 1715 Sir John Brownlow, Bt.
Jan 1721 Sir William Massingberd, 3rd Bt.
Apr 1722 Henry Heron
Feb 1724 Robert Vyner
Aug 1727 Sir Thomas Lumley Saunderson
Feb 1740 Thomas Whichcot
Apr 1761 Lord Brownlow Bertie
Oct 1774 Charles Anderson-Pelham
Dec 1779 Sir John Thorold, 9th Bt.
Sep 1794 Robert Vyner
Jun 1796 Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Bt.
Jul 1802 Charles Chaplin
May 1807 Charles Anderson-Pelham
Oct 1816 William Cust
Jun 1818 Charles Chaplin
Dec 1823 Sir William Amcotts-Ingilby, Bt.
May 1831 Charles Anderson Worsley Pelham
1832 Great Reform Act: constituency abolished

[edit] Election results

 Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.


[edit] References

  • D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
  • John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640-1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)
  • Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
  • 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)
  • British History Online - Parliamentary papers
  • Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs.