New Shoreham (UK Parliament constituency)

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For the 1974 to 1997 constituency, see Shoreham (UK Parliament constituency).
New Shoreham
Borough constituency
Created: 1295
Abolished: 1885
Type: House of Commons
Members: Two

New Shoreham, sometimes simply called Shoreham, was a parliamentary borough centred on the town of Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1295 until it was abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, with effect from the 1885 general election.

A modern constituency called Shoreham existed from 1974 to 1997.

Contents

[edit] Boundaries, Franchise and Boundary Changes

New Shoreham is a part of Shoreham-by-Sea, located around its port. The borough, in 1800, had about 1,000 electors. The qualification for the vote before 1832, unusually for a borough, was the possession of a 40 shilling freehold which was the normal franchise for a county constituency.

The explanation for the franchise qualification was the result of a disputed by-election in 1770. At that time all the electors qualified by paying scot and lot, a local property tax. Stooks Smith provides two notes on what happened, following a result in which Thomas Rumbold received 87 votes and John Purling had 37 votes (a third candidate, William James, received 4 votes).

The Returning Officer on the ground that nearly all the 87 were bribed declared Mr. Purling elected, but Mr. Rumbold was seated on petition. On the 14th Feb. 1771, Mr. Roberts the Returning Officer was brought to the Bar of the House, and on his knees received a very severe reprimand from the Speaker for having taken upon himself to return Mr. Purling.

However as a result of Mr. Roberts action there had been an investigation.

The evidence given by the Returning Officer, Mr. Hugh Roberts, before the Committee, was the means of bringing to light a most singular system of wholesale bribery, carried on by a body of Electors, who styled themselves, the "Christian Society", and who had for some time being in the habit of selling seats to the highest bidders. By 11th Geo. III. C. 55, the whole of the members, amounting to 81, were deprived of the right of again voting at any Parliamentary Election, and the old class of voters disfranchised, the right of election being extended to the 40s. freeholders of the Rape of Bramber.

The rapes were traditional subdivisions of Sussex. The six rapes each consisted of a strip of territory from the northern border of the county to its southern coast, so the area involved was considerably larger than that of the normal Parliamentary borough.

As a result of the extension of the boundaries the constituency became more like a county one than a typical borough of the era.

When an electoral register was first compiled, before the 1832 election, the 1,925 electors included 701 freeholders and 189 scot and lot voters. The remaining electors would have qualified under the occupation franchise introduced for all boroughs by the Reform Act 1832, which also preserved the ancient right franchises of the existing electors.

[edit] Members of Parliament

[edit] 1295-1640

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

[edit] 1640-1885

Election 1st Member 1st Party 2nd Member 2nd Party
November 1640 William Marlott Parliamentarian John Alford Parliamentarian
1646 Herbert Springet
December 1648 Springet and Alford excluded in Pride's Purge - both seats vacant
1653 New Shoreham was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659 John Whaley Edward Blaker
May 1659 Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660 (Sir) Herbert Springet [1] Edward Blaker
1662 William Quatremaine
1667 John Fagg
1673 Henry Goring
1678 Sir Anthony Deane
February 1679 Robert Fagg John Cheale
August 1679 John Hales
1681 Robert Fagg
1685 Sir Edward Hungerford Sir Richard Haddock
1689 John Monke
1690 John Perry
1695 Henry Priestman
1698 Charles Sergison
1701 Nathaniel Gould
1702 John Perry
1705 John Wicker
May 1708 Anthony Hammond [2] Richard Lloyd
December 1708 Sir Gregory Page
1710 (Sir) Nathaniel Gould
1713 Francis Chamberlayne
1715 Sir Gregory Page
1720 Francis Chamberlayne
1729 Samuel Ongley John Gould
1734 Thomas Frederick John Phillipson
1740 John Frederick
1741 Charles Frederick Thomas Brand
1747 Robert Bristow
1754 Richard Stratton
1758 Sir William Williams
March 1761 The Viscount Midleton
December 1761 The Lord Pollington [3]
1765 Vice-Admiral (Sir) Samuel Cornish [4]
1768 Peregrine Cust
November 1770 John Purling [5]
December 1770 Thomas Rumbold
1774 Charles Goring Sir John Shelley
1780 Sir Cecil Bisshopp John Peachey
1790 Sir Harry Goring John Clater Aldridge
1795 Hon. Charles Wyndham
1796 Sir Cecil Bisshopp
1802 Timothy Shelley
1806 Sir Charles Merrik Burrell, Bt Tory
1818 James Martin Lloyd
1826 Henry Howard
1832 Conservative Harry Goring [6] Whig
1837 Charles Goring Conservative
1849 Lord Alexander Gordon-Lennox Conservative
1859 Rt Hon. Sir Stephen Cave Conservative
1862 Sir Percy Burrell, Bt Conservative
1876 Sir Walter Wyndham Burrell, Bt Conservative
1880 Robert Loder Conservative
1885 constituency abolished

Notes

  1. ^ Created a baronet, January 1661
  2. ^ In December 1708 Hammond, who was a Commissioner of the Navy, was voted by the House of Commons to be therefore ineligible for election, and a writ for a by-election was immediately issued
  3. ^ Created Earl of Mexborough (in the Peerage of Ireland), February 1766
  4. ^ Created a baronet, February 1766
  5. ^ On petition, Purling was declared not have been duly elected, and his opponent Rumbold was declared to have been elected instead. Furthermore, the House voted that "the most corrupt practices had been used", and an Act of Parliament was passed in 1771 to permanently disqualify the returning officer and 80 other voters from ever voting again in a Parliamentary election, and to extend the right to vote for the Members for New Shoreham to all the 40 shilling freeholders of the Rape of Bramber.
  6. ^ Goring was classified by Craig as a Liberal, although his entry in Dod's Parliamentary Companion (reprinted in Stenton) describes him as "inclined to Conservative principles".

[edit] See also

[edit] External Sources

  • [1] Victoria History of the County of Sussex - south part of the Rape of Bramber

[edit] References

  • Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972)
  • British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (The Macmillan Press 1977)
  • The Parliaments of England by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844-50), second edition edited (in one volume) by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973) out of copyright
  • Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume I 1832-1885, edited by M. Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976)
  • 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]
  • Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988) [3]
  • J E Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
  • Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs.