Hampshire
Former County constituency
for the House of Commons
CountyHampshire
1295–1832
SeatsTwo
Replaced byNorth Hampshire and South Hampshire

Hampshire was a county constituency of the Parliament of England, Great Britain and after 1801 Parliament of the United Kingdom, which returned two Knights of the Shire (Members of Parliament) to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1832. (Officially the name was The County of Southampton, and it was occasionally referred to as Southamptonshire.)

History

The constituency consisted of the historic county of Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight. (Although Hampshire contained a number of parliamentary boroughs, each of which elected two MPs in its own right, these were not excluded from the county constituency, and owning property within the borough could confer a vote at the county election. This was even the case for the town of Southampton; although Southampton had the status of a county in itself after 1447, unlike most cities and towns with similar status its freeholders were not barred from voting at county elections.)

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. In the 18th century, the electorate amounted to around 5,000 voters.

Uniquely for a county constituency before the Reform Act, elections in Hampshire were held at two polling places, the poll being first opened at Winchester and then, once all the mainland voters had been polled, adjourning to Newport for the convenience of the Isle of Wight voters. This concession, however, only slightly mitigated the difficulties caused by voters having to travel to the county town to exercise their franchise.

IX. Poll for Knights of Shire for County of Southampton; adjourned from Winchester to Newport.
Provided alsoe and be itt enacted by the Authority aforesaid That the Sheriffe of the County of Southampton or his Deputy att the Request of one or more of the Candidates for Election of a Knight or Knights for that County shall adjourne the Poll from Winchester after every Freeholder then and there present is polled to Newport in the Isle of Wight for the ease of the Inhabitants of the said Island Any thing in this Act contained to the contrary notwithstanding.
— Parliamentary Elections Act 1695

Parliament Act 1780
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long titleAn Act for holding the ensuing Election of a Knight of the Shire for the County of Southampton, at the Town of New Alresford, in the said County.
Citation20 Geo. 3. c. 1
Dates
Royal assent7 December 1779
Commencement25 November 1779[a]
Other legislation
Repealed byStatute Law Revision Act 1871
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Parliament (No. 2) Act 1780
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long titleAn Act for exempting the City of Winchester, the County of Southampton, the Town of Shrewsbury, and the County of Salop, out of the Provisions of an Act, made in the Eighth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Second, intituled, "An Act for regulating the Quartering of Soldiers during the Time of the Elections of Members to serve in Parliament," so far as the same relates to the Removal of Troops during the Elections of Members to serve in Parliament, for a limited Time.
Citation20 Geo. 3. c. 50
Dates
Royal assent23 June 1780
Commencement25 November 1779[a]
Expired18 July 1781[b]
Other legislation
Amended by
  • Parliament Act 1781
  • Parliament (No. 1) Act 1782
Repealed byStatute Law Revision Act 1871
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Parliament Act 1781
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Citation21 Geo. 3. c. 43
Dates
Commencement31 October 1780[a]
Expired11 July 1782[b]
Other legislation
AmendsParliament (No. 2) Act 1780
Repealed byStatute Law Revision Act 1871
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted
Parliament (No. 1) Act 1782
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long titleAn Act for further continuing an Act made in the Twentieth Year of the Reign of His present Majesty, intituled, "An Act for exempting the City of Winchester, the County of Southampton, the Town of Shrewsbury, and the County of Salop, out of the Provisions of an Act made in the Eighth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Second, intituled, 'An Act for regulating the Quartering of Soldiers during the Time of the Elections of Members to serve in Parliament;' so far as the same relates to the Removal of Troops during the Elections of Members to serve in Parliament for a limited Time."
Citation22 Geo. 3. c. 29
Dates
Royal assent17 May 1782
Commencement27 November 1781[a]
Expired20 May 1784[c]
Other legislation
AmendsParliament (No. 2) Act 1780
Repealed byStatute Law Revision Act 1871
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

During the American Revolutionary War, elections from 1779 to the 1783 Peace of Paris were in New Alresford instead of Winchester, because the existing law, the Parliamentary Elections Act 1734, (8 Geo. 2. c. 30)[1] would have required soldiers stationed at Winchester to depart during the election, leaving French and Spanish prisoners of war unguarded,[2] and the Parliamentary Elections Act 1695 (7 & 8 Will. 3. c. 25) required the sheriff to hold county elections "att the most publick and usuall Place of Election within the said County". The 1779 election was moved with the consent of the candidates.[3] Subsequently, the law was changed to require such a move, first by 20 Geo. 3. c. 1, which applied to the December 1779 by-election;[4] then in preparation for the 1780 general election by section 2 of 20 Geo. 3. c. 50,[5] which was continued by 21 Geo. 3. c. 43[6] and by 22 Geo. 3. c. 29.[7][2]

Up to Elizabethan times, at least, the voters had to contend with these difficulties themselves: Neale quotes an allusion to Hampshire freeholders "fasting and far from home" at a by-election in 1566 as evidence that the practice of feeding the voters to encourage their attendance was not yet universal. But later it became normal for voters to expect the candidates for whom they voted to meet their expenses in travelling to the poll and to entertain them generously when they reached it, making the cost of a contested election almost prohibitive in a county as large as Hampshire. When the prime minister Lord North sent £2,000 of the King's money to assist the government candidates fighting an election in Hampshire in 1779, he wrote to the King that it "bore ... a very small part of the expense" – yet it was insufficient to win the election, one of the government candidates being defeated.

Contested elections were therefore generally rare, potential candidates preferring to canvass support beforehand and usually not insisting on a vote being taken unless they were confident of winning; although there was a contest at each of the four general elections from 1705 to 1713, at all but four of the remaining 23 general elections before 1832, Hampshire's two MPs were elected unopposed.

Hampshire elections may have been less corrupt than most, and the 19th century chronicler of electoral abuses in the Unreformed Parliament, Thomas Oldfield, notes of the constituency that "We do not find a single petition [since 1640] complaining of an undue election in this county!!!" – complete with three exclamation marks. In the 18th and early 19th century Hampshire's voters were consistently of a High Tory persuasion, and throughout the 18th century the county's MPs were almost invariably nominees of the Crown. This influence arose in particular because of the number of government employees (in the dockyards at Portsmouth and Gosport, the forts of the Isle of Wight, and customs-houses all along the coast), as well as the Crown's tenants in the New Forest. Hampshire sentiments seem nevertheless to have been strongly in favour of reforming the House of Commons (views, no doubt, fuelled by the presence of several notorious rotten boroughs in the county), and on several occasions it submitted substantial petitions to Parliament in favour of the Reform Bill or of earlier unsuccessful proposals along the same lines.

According to the census of 1831, at around the time of the Great Reform Act Hampshire had a population of approximately 315,000. From 1832 the Reform Act split the constituency into three, giving the Isle of Wight a single member of its own and dividing the remainder of the county into two two-member divisions, Northern Hampshire and Southern Hampshire. (There were also minor changes to the parliamentary boundary between Hampshire and Sussex.)

Members of Parliament

MPs 1295–1640

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)
Parliament First member Second member
1336–1344 John de Hampton
1346 John de Pounde
1362 Thomas de Hampton
1364 Sir Thomas Foxle[8]
1369 Sir Bernard Brocas
1371 Sir Bernard Brocas
1372 Sir Thomas Foxle[8]
1373 Sir Bernard Brocas
1380 (Jan) Sir Bernard Brocas
1380 (Nov) Sir Bernard Brocas
1383 (Feb) Henry Popham [9]
1384 (Apr) William Sturmy
1385 Henry Popham[9]
1386 Sir Bernard Brocas Sir John Sandys[10]
1388 (Feb) Sir Thomas Worting Henry Popham [10]
1388 (Sep) Sir Thomas Worting Henry Popham [10]
1390 (Jan) Sir John Sandys John Bettesthorne [10]
1390 (Nov) Sir William Sturmy Henry Popham [10]
1391 Sir John Sandys Robert Cholmley [10]
1393 Sir Bernard Brocas Sir John Sandys [10]
1394 Henry Popham John Hampton [10]
1395 Sir Bernard Brocas Robert Cholmley [10]
1397 (Jan) Sir John Popham Robert Cholmley [10]
1397 (Sep) Robert More Robert Cholmley [10]
1399 Sir Thomas Skelton Sir Nicholas Dabrichecourt [10]
1401 Sir John Lisle Robert Cholmley [10]
1402 Sir John Popham Edward Cowdray [10]
1404 (Jan) Sir John Lisle Sir John Popham[10]
1404 (Oct) Henry Popham [10]
1406 Sir John Berkeley Sir Thomas Skelton [10]
1407 Sir John Popham William Fauconer [10]
1410
1411 John Uvedale William Fauconer [10]
1413 (Feb)
1413 (May) John Uvedale John Arnold [10]
1414 (Apr) Sir Walter Sandys William Brocas of The Vine [10]
1414 (Nov) Lewis John Thomas Wallop [10]
1415 William Brocas of The Vine John Harris [10]
1416 (Mar) Bernard Brocas of Bradley John Uvedale [10]
1416 (Oct)
1417 Edward Cowdray John Lisle [10]
1419 John Uvedale Thomas Wallop [10]
1420 Sir Stephen Popham John Kirkby [10]
1421 (May) John Uvedale Robert Dingley [10]
1421 (Dec) William Brocas of The Vine Richard Wallop [10]
1422 William Brocas of the Vine John Lisle
1423 Sir Stephen Popham Edward Cowdray
1425 Sir Stephen Popham
1426 Sir John Boys[11]
1431 Sir Stephen Popham
1432 John Hampton
1433 Sir John VI Lisle
1439 Sir John Popham
1442 Sir Stephen Popham
1449 Sir John VI Lisle
1449 Sir John Popham
1510–1523 No names known[12]
1529 Sir William Paulet Sir Richard Sandys[12]
1536
1539 Thomas Wriothesley Richard Worsley[12]
1542 Thomas Wriothesley Sir Thomas Lisle[12]
1545
1547 Sir Henry Seymour Thomas White[12]
1553 (Mar) Sir Richard Cotton ? [12]
1553 (Oct) Sir Thomas White Nicholas Tichborne[12]
1554 (Apr) Sir Thomas White Sir John Mason[12]
1554 (Nov) Sir Thomas White John Norton[12]
1555 Sir Thomas White John Norton[12]
1558 Sir Thomas White Sir John Mason[12]
1558–9 Sir John Mason Sir Thomas White[13]
1562 (Dec) Sir John Mason, died
and replaced 1566 by Sir John Berkeley		 William Uvedale[13]
1566 (Nov) Sir Henry Wallop [13]
1571 Hon. Henry Radclyffe Richard Norton[13]
1572 (Apr) Edward Horsey Richard Norton[13]
1584 (Nov) Sir George Carey Richard Kingsmill [13]
1588 Sir George Carey Thomas West[14]
1593 Sir George Carey Benjamin Tichborne [13]
1597 Thomas Fleming Richard Mill[13]
1601 Sir Henry Wallop Sir Edward More [13]
1604 Sir Robert Oxenbridge William Jephson
1614 Richard Tichborne Sir William Uvedale
1621 Sir Henry Wallop Sir John Jephson
1624 Sir Daniel Norton Sir Robert Oxenbridge
1625 Robert Wallop Henry Whitehead
1626 Sir Henry Wallop Robert Wallop
1628 Sir Henry Wallop Sir Daniel Norton
1629–1640 No Parliaments convened

MPs 1640–1832

Election First member First party Second member Second party
April 1640 Sir Henry Wallop Richard Whitehead
November 1640 Sir Henry Wallop (died 1642)
1642 Richard Norton
Election First member First party Second member Second party
1659 Robert Wallop Richard Norton
1660 Richard Norton John Bulkeley
1661 Lord St John Sir John Norton, Bt
1675 Sir Francis Rolle
February 1679 Edward Noel Richard Norton
August 1679 Lord Russell Sir Francis Rolle
1680 Thomas Jervoise
1681 Earl of Wiltshire
1685 Viscount Campden
January 1689 Lord William Powlett
February 1689 Thomas Jervoise
1690 Richard Norton
1691 Sir Robert Henley
1693 Richard Norton
1698 Thomas Jervoise
1701 Richard Chaundler
1702 Richard Norton George Pitt
1705 Thomas Jervoise Richard Chaundler
1708 Marquess of Winchester Viscount Woodstock
1709 Thomas Jervoise
1710 George Pitt Sir Simeon Stuart, Bt
1713 Thomas Lewis Sir Anthony Sturt
1715 George Pitt John Wallop
1720 Lord Nassau Powlett
1722 Lord Harry Powlett[15]
1727 Sir John Cope, Bt
1734 [15] Edward Lisle Tory
1741 Paulet St John
1747 Francis Whithed
1751 Alexander Thistlethwayte
1754 Marquess of Winchester
1759 Henry Bilson-Legge Whig
1761 Sir Simeon Stuart, Bt
1765 Sir Richard Mill, Bt
1768 Lord Henley
1772 Sir Henry St John, Bt Tory
1779 Jervoise Clarke Jervoise Anti-Government
1780 Robert Thistlethwayte
1790 Sir William Heathcote, Bt William John Chute
1806 Thomas Thistlethwayte Hon. William Herbert
1807 Sir Henry St John-Mildmay, Bt William John Chute
1808 Thomas Freeman-Heathcote
1820 John Willis Fleming Tory George Purefoy-Jervoise
1826 Sir William Heathcote, Bt Tory
1830 Ultra-Tory
1831 Sir James Macdonald, Bt Whig Charles Shaw-Lefevre Whig
1832 Sir Thomas Baring, Bt
1832 Constituency abolished

Election results

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (August 2008)

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Retrospectively commenced from the start of the session of Parliament.
  2. ^ a b The act expired at the end of the subsequent session of Parliament.
  3. ^ Expired at the conclusion of peace with France, Spain and Holland: this occurred with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1784 ending the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War.

References

  1. ^ 8 Geo. 2. c. 30
  2. ^ a b Roe, William Thomas (1818). A Practical Treatise on the Law of Elections, Relating to England, Scotland, and Ireland. London: Charles Hunter. pp. 315–317 fn(b). Retrieved 28 June 2019. By the statute 20 Geo. 3. c. 1, on account of the French and Spanish prisoners confined at Winchester, the then ensuing election for the county of Southampton, was directed to be holden at New Alresford, instead of at Winchester; and by the statute 20 Geo. 3. c. 50. § 2, it was directed to be so holden during the continuance of that act. The stat 20 Geo. 3. c. 50, recited the stat. 8 Geo. 2. c. 30; and that in the city of Winchester there was a house, or palace, belonging to his majesty, which it had been found necessary to use as a prison for confining and guarding a large number of French and Spanish prisoners, and that a number of troops had for some time past been stationed in the said city, for the purpose of guarding such prisoners; and that the number of such prisoners was so great, that they could not be removed during any election of members to serve in parliament for the said city with out great difficulty, expence, and hazard of escape; and that the removal of the said troops, necessary for the guard of such prisoners, would be attended with manifest danger, not only to the inhabitants of the said city, and persons resorting thereto, but to the public in general: And therefore in order to the better guarding and safe keeping of such prisoners during the time of any such election, enacted, that nothing in the said act contained should extend, or be construed to extend, to the said city, for such time only as it should found necessary to detain such prisoners of war in the house, or palace, and so as the same related to such troops or soldiers only as should be necessary for the purpose of guarding any such prisoners of war; and it was provided, that the number of such troops should not, during the times of such election exceed the proportion of three soldiers to every twenty prisoners so confined; and that such proportion of the said troops as should not be actually upon guard, should, during such election remain in the barracks, until it should be necessary to relieve the said guard, after which time the former guard should immediately return to the said barracks, and so alternately during the continuance of such election.
  3. ^ Underdown, David (December 2005). "Aristocratic Faction and Reformist Politics in Eighteenth-Century Hampshire: The Election of December 1779". Huntington Library Quarterly. 68 (4): 601–630: 619. doi:10.1525/hlq.2005.68.4.601. JSTOR 10.1525/hlq.2005.68.4.601.
  4. ^ 20 Geo. 3. c. 1
  5. ^ 20 Geo. 3. c. 50
  6. ^ 21 Geo. 3. c. 43
  7. ^ 22 Geo. 3. c. 29
  8. ^ a b "The Putnam Lineage"
  9. ^ a b "POPHAM, Henry (c.1339-1418), of Popham, Hants". History of Parliament Online. Archived from the original on 14 September 2017. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac "History of Parliament". Archived from the original on 3 May 2012. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  11. ^ "BOYS, Sir John (d.1447), of London, Harrow, Mdx. and Farley Chamberlayne, Hants". History of Parliament Online. Archived from the original on 23 December 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "History of Parliament". Archived from the original on 12 October 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i "History of Parliament". Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
  14. ^ "WEST, Thomas I (d.1622), of Testwood in Eling, Hants". History of Parliament Online. Archived from the original on 2 March 2012. Retrieved 3 April 2022.
  15. ^ a b At the 1734 general election Powlett was also elected for Yarmouth. A petition was lodged against the Hampshire result, and he sat for Yarmouth until 1737 when the petition against the Hampshire result was withdrawn, then chose to represent Hampshire rather than Yarmouth for the remainder of the Parliament

Bibliography

  • Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [1]
  • John Cannon, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)
  • Lewis Namier and John Brooke, The House of Commons 1754-1790 (London: HMSO, 1964)
  • J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
  • T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
  • J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Reform 1640-1832 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
  • Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
  • Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "H" (part 1)
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