Maldon (UK Parliament constituency)

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Maldon
County constituency
Image:Constituency.svg
Maldon shown within Essex, and Essex shown within England
Created: for 2009 or 2010 election
MP: John Whittingdale
Party: Conservative
Type: House of Commons
County: Essex
EP constituency: East of England

Maldon will be a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It will elect one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. This seat is a successor to the existing Maldon and East Chelmsford constituency.

There was previously a constituency called Maldon between 1332 and 1983.

Contents

[edit] The new constituency

[edit] Boundaries

Following their review of parliamentary representation in Essex, the Boundary Commission for England have created a number of radically altered and new constituencies to allow for the increasing population. Electoral wards from Maldon have been used to create a new Witham constituency.

The electoral wards used in the redrawn Maldon constituency are;

  • Althorne, Burnham-on-Crouch North, Burnham-on-Crouch South, Heybridge East, Heybridge West, Maldon East, Maldon North, Maldon South, Maldon West, Mayland, Purleigh, Southminster and Tillingham from Maldon district
  • Bicknacre and East and West Hanningfield, Little Baddow, Danbury and Sandon, Rettendon and Runwell, South Hanningfield, Stock and Margaretting, South Woodham Ferrers–Chetwood and Collingwood, and South Woodham Ferrers–Elmwood and Woodville from Chelmsford district

[edit] The historic constituency (1332-1983)

Maldon
Borough constituency
Created: 1332
Abolished: 1885
Type: House of Commons
Members: two (1295-1868); one (1868-1885)
Essex, Maldon
County constituency
Created: 1885
Abolished: 1983
Type: House of Commons
Members: one

Maldon was originally a Parliamentary borough in Essex, first represented in the House of Commons in 1332; it elected two MPs until 1868, and one from 1868 until 1885. In that year the borough was abolished but the name was transferred to a county division of Essex, which continued with some boundary changes until 1983.

[edit] Maldon borough (1332-1885)

[edit] Boundaries and franchise before the Reform Act

Until the Great Reform Act of 1832, the borough consisted of the three parishes of the town of Maldon, a small market town and port on the coast of Essex.

Maldon had been a municipal as well as Parliamentary borough, its first charter dating from the reign of Henry II, and at one period the Corporation had the sole right to elect the town's MPs. From 1701 at the latest, however, the right to vote was exercised by the freemen of the town, whether or not resident within the borough; and, unusually, honorary freemen and those acquiring the freedom by purchase were also entitled to vote in Maldon. This had several consequences. The electorate in Maldon was much bigger than was usual in a town of that size - in the first half of the 18th century, the number of qualified voters generally about 800 (the majority of whom did not live in Maldon). It also meant that the town corporation, with the power to create freemen and therefore voters, was in a position to gerrymander elections if it so wished. This might, as was the case in some other boroughs, have ended in one interest gaining control of the corporation and turning Maldon into a pocket borough; in fact, however, Maldon instead stayed independent but venal, and gaining election there tended to be an expensive business. Sometimes it was not merely a case of bribing the voters: in 1690, it was recorded in the House of Commons journals that the wives and daughters of Maldon freemen were being bribed at election time as well.

One interest that was firmly established by the middle of the 18th century, however, was that of the government, which ensured that lucrative posts in the customs house were reserved for loyally-voting freemen, and also attempted to have government supporters – often strangers to the town – elected to vacancies on the corporation. It was generally taken for granted that the government candidates would normally be elected.

[edit] The Strutt ascendancy

However, in the 1750s the government’s control of Maldon weakened, and a prominent local Tory, John Strutt, found he had enough influence with the voters to sway elections. He secured the election of several of his friends over the years and eventually, in 1774, was persuaded to stand himself, which he did successfully.

In the meanwhile, however, a dramatic change had been wrought in the system. In 1763 one of the sitting MPs, Strutt's friend Bamber Gascoyne, was appointed to the Board of Trade and therefore had to be re-elected at Maldon. Gascoyne's opponent, John Huske, accused him of threatening that any freemen working in the customs house who did not vote for him would be dismissed (which, by this period, would have been an illegal threat). Although the Prime Minister, George Grenville, denied having authorised Gascoyne to make any such threat and Gascoyne denied having made it, it seems clear it was believed in Maldon and the corporation sided with Huske, creating enough new freemen to ensure Gascoyne was defeated. Both sides started actions for bribery, but Gascoyne had decided on more drastic action. He took out a writ against the Corporation, and the Courts ordered the ousting of the majority of members; eventually, in 1768, the Corporation was dissolved by judicial order.

For half a century the duties of returning officer were transferred to the High Sheriff of Essex. However, the Sheriff could not assume the Corporation's function of swearing in new freemen, and Strutt's influence was thus entirely secured against any possibility of new voters being created to outvote him. However, there was a problem: by the time of the general election of 1807 the number of remaining qualified voters had dwindled to 58, and the constituency was in imminent danger of quite literally dying out. Yet there were more than 800 new freemen who were only barred from voting because there was nobody to swear them in; finally a new charter was granted, in time to enfranchise them for the election of 1810.

Matters then returned to normal in Maldon for the remaining 22 years before the Reform Act. Strutt's son, Joseph Holden Strutt, retained much of the influence that his father had wielded, being generally considered to be able to nominate one of the two MPs or to choose to sit himself; as he exercised all government patronage in Maldon, he was well placed to secure the other seat as well. But when the voters proved uncooperative, they could easily enough be over-ruled: at the 1826 election, the Corporation secured the result it wanted by admitting another thousand new freemen in time for them to vote; 3,113 freemen voted, of whom only 251 were Maldon residents.

[edit] After the Reform Act

In the initial drafts of the Reform Bill, Maldon was to lose one of its two seats and although it was eventually spared this fate its population of 3,831 in 1831 left it very close to the borderline. The eventual Reform Act extended the borough by adding the neighbouring parish of Heybridge, increasing the population to 4,895; but with only 716 qualified voters under the new franchise its electorate was less than a quarter of what it had previously been. The constituency was a highly marginal one, victory rarely being secured by more than a handful of votes. In 1852, only 40 votes separated first place from fourth, and the second Tory's majority over his Whig opponent was only 6; after the losing candidates petitioned, alleging corruption, the election was declared void and Maldon's right to representation was suspended while a Royal Commission investigated. However, no major scandal was uncovered and (unlike some other boroughs similarly investigated at the same period) its right to vote was reinstated and a writ for a new by-election was issued.

[edit] Maldon county constituency (1885-1983)

The Second Reform Act, implemented in 1868, took seats from most of the smallest boroughs, and Maldon's representation was halved; but it was still too small, and at the election of 1885 the borough was abolished altogether. The county division into which the town was placed, however, was named after the town. (Officially, until 1918, it was the Eastern (or Maldon) Division of Essex; after that, simply the Maldon division.) As well as Maldon itself this contained the towns of Braintree, Halstead and Witham. Once again this constituency was a marginal one - almost the only rural county seat in the South East at this period not to be safely Conservative. The strength of the Liberal vote seems to have been partly based on the strength of Nonconformism in the Halstead area, but also on trade unionism among the agricultural labourers (which elsewhere in Essex was offset by a strongly Tory maritime vote which Maldon lacked).

After 1918, boundary changes added Burnham on Crouch and the surrounding district, but the constituency was still a rural one, with 35% of the occupied male population employed in the agricultural sector at the time of the 1921 census. The Labour rather than the Liberals were now the Conservatives' main opponents. When the Liberal Party split in 1922, Maldon's Liberals split as well, and the constituency was the first where the Lloyd George Liberals set up a constituency association, though this was apparently without the sanction of the national party headquarters and the association is not recorded as having organised any activities. In 1923 no Liberal candidate stood at all, and Labour captured the seat for the first time. The Conservatives retook the seat in 1924, holding it until the 1940s, but it was won by Tom Driberg in a wartime by-election; yet his hold on the seat was rarely secure and he eventually moved to sit for a safer seat. Thereafter Maldon remained Conservative until its abolition, though at first by the narrowest of margins.

The Maldon constituency was abolished in the boundary changes which came into effect at the 1983 election, being divided between the new Colchester South and Maldon and Rochford constituencies.

[edit] Members of Parliament

[edit] 1332-1640

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

[edit] 1640-1868

Year First member First party Second member Second party
April 1640 Sir Henry Mildmay Parliamentarian ?
November 1640 Sir John Clotworthy Parliamentarian
January 1648 Clotworthy disabled from sitting January 1648,
but readmitted June 1648
June 1648 Sir John Clotworthy Parliamentarian
December 1648 Clotworthy excluded in Pride's Purge - seat vacant
1653 Maldon was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament
1654 Colonel Joachim Matthews Maldon had only one seat in the First and
Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
1656
January 1659 Colonel Sir Henry Mildmay
May 1659 One seat vacant
April 1660 Tristram Conyers Henry Mildmay
June 1660 Edward Herrys
1661 Sir John Tyrell Sir Richard Wiseman
1677 Sir William Wiseman
March 1679 Sir John Bramston
October 1679 Sir Thomas Darcy
1685 Sir John Bramston
1689 Charles Montagu
1693 Sir Eliab Harvey
1695 Irby Montagu
1699 John Bullock
January 1701 William Fytche
November 1701 John Comyns
1708 Sir Richard Child Thomas Richmond
1710 John Comyns [1]
1711 William Fytche
1712 Thomas Bramston [2]
1715 Samuel Tufnell
1722 Sir John Comyns
1727 Henry Parsons Thomas Bramston, junior
1734 Martin Bladen
1740 Benjamin Keene
1741 Sir Thomas Drury Robert Colebrooke
1747 Sir Richard Lloyd, KC
1754 John Bullock
1761 Bamber Gascoyne Independent
1763 John Huske
1773 Charles Rainsford
1774 John Strutt Tory Hon. Richard Savage Nassau
1780 Eliab Harvey
1784 The Lord Waltham
1787 Admiral Sir Peter Parker
1790 Joseph Holden Strutt Tory Charles Callis Western Whig
1806 Benjamin Gaskell [3] Whig
1807 Charles Callis Western Whig
1812 Benjamin Gaskell Whig
1826 Hon. George Allanson Winn Tory Thomas Barrett Lennard Whig
1827 Hugh Dick Tory
1830 Quintin Dick Tory
1832 Conservative
1837 John Round Conservative
1847 David Waddington Conservative Thomas Barrett Lennard Whig
1852 [4] Charles du Cane Conservative Taverner John Miller Conservative
1854 George Peacocke Conservative John Bramley-Moore Conservative
1857 Thomas Sutton Western Whig
1859 Liberal George Peacocke [5] Conservative
1865 Ralph Anstruther Earle Conservative
1868 Representation reduced to one member

[edit] 1868-1983

Election MP Party
1868 Edward Hammond Bentall Liberal
1874 George Sandford Conservative
1878 by-election George Courtauld Liberal
1880
1885 Arthur George Kitching Liberal
1886 Charles Wing Gray Conservative
1892 Cyril Dodd, QC Liberal
1895 Hon. Charles Hedley Strutt Conservative
1900
1906 Thomas Robert Bethell Liberal
1910 (January) Sir James Fortescue Flannery, Bt Conservative
1910 (December)
1918 Coalition Conservative
1922 Lt Col Edward Ruggles-Brise MC Conservative
1923 Valentine George Crittall, later Baron Braintree Labour
1924 Lt Col Edward Ruggles-Brise MC Conservative
1929
1931
1935 Lt Col Sir Edward Ruggles-Brise, Bt., MC Conservative
1942 by-election Tom Driberg Independent
1945 Labour
1950
1951
1955 Alastair Harrison Conservative
1959
1964
1966
1970
1974 (February) John Wakeham Conservative
1974 (October)
1979
1983 constituency abolished

Notes

  1. ^ Comyns was re-elected in 1715, but his election was declared void because he refused to take the oath that he met the property qualification to be elected
  2. ^ Bramston was initially declared re-elected in 1715, but on petition he was declared not to have been duly elected and his opponent, Tufnell, was seated in his place
  3. ^ On petition, Gaskell was adjudged not to have been duly elected, and his opponent, Western, was seated in his place
  4. ^ The election of 1852 was declared void on petition following allegations of corruption. Maldon's writ was suspended and a Royal Commission was appointed to investigate, but the writ was evetually restored and a by-election was held
  5. ^ Peacocke changed his name to Sandford during the Parliament of 1865

[edit] Election results

The re-formed Maldon seat will be fought for the first time at the next general election due in 2009 or 2010.

[edit] Elections in the 1910s

General Election, 1918: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Coalition Conservative Sir James Fortescue Flannery, Bt 8,136 51.1
Labour George Dallas 6,315 39.6
Liberal E. W. Tanner 1,490 9.3
Majority 1,823 11.5
Turnout 15,943 56.7
Conservative hold Swing

[edit] Elections in the 1920s

General Election, 1922: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Edward Ruggles-Brise 10,337 47.2 −3.9
Labour George Dallas 6,085 27.8 −11.8
Liberal J. Parish 5,470 25.0 +15.7
Majority 4,252 19.4 +7.9
Turnout 21,892 74.8 +18.1
Conservative hold Swing
General Election, 1923: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Valentine Crittall 10,329 50.1 +22.3
Conservative Edward Ruggles-Brise 10,280 49.9 +2.7
Majority 49 0.2
Turnout 21,892 69.6 −5.2
Labour gain from Conservative Swing
General Election, 1924: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Edward Ruggles-Brise 13,209 52.3 +2.2
Labour Valentine Crittall 9,323 36.9 −13.0
Liberal H. R. G. Brooks 2,724 10.8 N/A
Majority 3,886 15.4
Turnout 25,256 82.6 +13.0
Conservative gain from Labour Swing
General Election, 1929: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Edward Ruggles-Brise 14,020 43.8 −8.5
Labour Herbert Evans 11,224 35.1 −1.8
Liberal H. A. May 6,748 21.1 +10.3
Majority 2,796 8.7 −6.7
Turnout 31,992 79.5 −3.1
Conservative hold Swing

[edit] Elections in the 1930s

General Election, 1935: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Edward Ruggles-Brise 22,055 70.8 +27.1
Labour W. F. Toynbee 9,078 29.2 −5.9
Majority 12,977 41.6 +32.9
Turnout 31,133 74.7 −4.8
Conservative hold Swing
General Election, 1935: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Sir Edward Ruggles-Brise, Bt 17,072 53.4 −17.4
Labour W. F. Toynbee 9,264 28.9 −0.3
Liberal Hilda Buckmaster 5,680 17.7 N/A
Majority 7,808 24.5 −16.1
Turnout 32,016 73.8 −0.9
Conservative hold Swing

[edit] Elections in the 1940s

Maldon by-election, 25th June 1942
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Independent Labour Tom Driberg 12,219 61.3
Conservative R. J. Hunt 6,226 31.3 −22.1
National Independent and Agricultural R.B. Matthews 1,476 7.4
Majority 5,993 30.0
Turnout 19,921 44.4 −29.4
Independent gain from Conservative Swing

Driberg was elected in 1942 as an Independent Labour candidate, but took the Labour Party whip in January 1945, and stood in the 1945 election as a Labour Party candidate.

General Election, 1945: Maldon
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Tom Driberg 22,480 60.4 −0.9
Conservative A. M. S. Stephenson 14,753 39.6 +6.3
Majority 7,727 20.8 −9.2
Turnout 37,233 74.5 +30.1
Labour hold Swing

[edit] Elections in the 2000s

Confirmed candidates for the next UK general election [1]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Labour Swatantra Nandanwar
UK Independence Michael Whiting
Conservative John Whittingdale

[edit] See also

[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)
  • John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform 1640-1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972)
  • Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [2]
  • The Constitutional Year Book for 1913 (London: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 1913)
  • F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
  • Craig, F. W. S. [1969] (1983). British parliamentary election results 1918-1949, 3rd edition, Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X. 
  • Michael Kinnear, The British Voter (London: BH Batsford, Ltd, 1968)
  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910 (London: Macmillan, 1967)
  • Robert Waller, The Almanac of British Politics (1st edition, London: Croom Helm, 1983)
  • Frederic A Youngs, jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979)
  1. ^ Maldon, UKPollingReport
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