| Bradford | |
|---|---|
| Former Borough constituency | |
| for the House of Commons | |
| County | West Riding of Yorkshire |
| Major settlements | Bradford |
| 1832–1885 | |
| Number of members | Two |
| Replaced by | Bradford Central Bradford East Bradford West |
| Created from | Yorkshire |
Bradford was a parliamentary constituency in Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 until it was abolished for the 1885 general election.
It was then split into three new constituencies: Bradford Central, Bradford East, and Bradford West.
The constituency was based upon the town of Bradford, in the West Riding of Yorkshire. It was enfranchised as a two member parliamentary borough from 1832. Before 1832 the area was only represented as part of the county constituency of Yorkshire. After 1832 the non-resident Forty Shilling Freeholders of the area continued to qualify for a county vote (initially in the West Riding of Yorkshire seat, and from 1865 in a division of the West Riding).
Bradford, as a new parliamentary borough, had no voters enfranchised under the ancient rights preserved by the Reform Act 1832. All voters qualified under the new uniform, borough householder franchise.
The area was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1847, covering the parishes of Bradford, Horton and Manningham. Bradford was expanded in 1882 to include Allerton, Bolton, Bowling, Heaton, Thornbury and Tyersall. However the parliamentary boundaries were not affected until the redistribution of 1885.
After the expanded borough was divided into three single member seats in 1885, Bradford became a county borough with the passing of the Local Government Act 1888. The county borough was granted city status by Letters Patent in 1897.
| Election | First member | First party | Second member | Second party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1832 | Ellis Cunliffe Lister | Liberal 1 | John Hardy | Liberal 1 | ||
| 1835 | Conservative | |||||
| 1837 | William Busfield | Liberal 1 | ||||
| 1841 | John Hardy | Conservative | William Cunliffe Lister | Liberal 1 | ||
| 1841 by-election | William Busfield | Liberal 1 | ||||
| 1847 | Thomas Perronet Thompson | Liberal 1 | ||||
| 1851 by-election | Robert Milligan | Liberal 1 [1] | ||||
| 1852 | Henry Wickham Wickham | Conservative | ||||
| 1857 | Thomas Perronet Thompson | Liberal 1 [2] | ||||
| 1859 | Titus Salt | Liberal 1 | ||||
| 1861 by-election | William Edward Forster | Liberal | ||||
| 1867 by-election | Matthew William Thompson | Liberal | ||||
| 1868 | Henry William Ripley | Liberal | ||||
| 1869 by-election | Edward Miall | Liberal | ||||
| 1874 | Henry William Ripley | Conservative | ||||
| 1880 | Alfred Illingworth | Liberal | ||||
| 1885 | constituency divided: see Bradford Central, Bradford East, and Bradford West | |||||
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