Boroughbridge (UK Parliament constituency) explained

Boroughbridge
Type:	Borough
Parliament:	uk
Year:	1553
Abolished:	1832
Elects Howmany:	Two

Boroughbridge was a parliamentary borough in Yorkshire from 1553 until 1832, when it was abolished under the Great Reform Act. Throughout its existence it was represented by two Members of Parliament in the House of Commons.

The constituency consisted of the market town of Boroughbridge in the parish of Aldborough (which was also a borough with two MPs of its own). By 1831 it contained only 154 houses, and had a population of 947.

Boroughbridge was a burgage borough, meaning that the right to vote was vested in the tenants of certain specified properties, of which there seem to have been about 65 by the time the borough was abolished. Since these properties could be freely bought and sold, the effective power of election rested with whoever owned the majority of the burgages (who, if necessary, could simply assign the tenancies to reliable placemen shortly before an election). For more than a century before the Reform Act, Boroughbridge was owned by the Dukes of Newcastle, who controlled around fifteen seats across the country; however, in the 1790s, they sold one of the seats for £4,000 to the banker Thomas Coutts, who used it to put his son-in-law, Francis Burdett, into Parliament.

Members of Parliament

• Constituency created (1553)

1553–1640

Parliament	First member	Second member
1553 (Oct)	William Tancred	Christopher Wray^[1]
1554 (Apr)	Ralph Cholmley	Christopher Wray
1554 (Nov)	Christopher Wray	John Holmes
1555	Christopher Wray	Robert Kempe
1558	William Fairfax	Christopher Wray
1558–9	Sir John York	Richard Bunny
1562–3	John Astley	Thomas Disney
1571	Cotton Gargrave	Thomas Boynton
1572 (Apr)	Thomas Eynns (died 1578)	Cotton Gargrave
1584 (Oct)	Henry Cheke	Nicholas Faunt
1586 (Sep)	George Savile	Robert Briggs
1588–9	Sir Edward Fitton	Francis Moore
1593	John Brograve	Vincent Skinner
1597 (Sep)		Thomas Crompton
1601	Richard Whalley
1604	John Ferne
1609	Sir Thomas Vavasour
1614		George Marshall
1621	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	George Wethered
1624	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	Christopher Mainwaring
1625	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	William Mainwaring
1626	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	Philip Mainwaring
1628	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	Francis Neville
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned

1640–1832

Year			First member	First party	Second member	Second party
		April 1640			Francis Neville
		November 1640	Sir Philip Stapylton (d. September 1647)	Parliamentarian		Parliamentarian
		1648
		December 1648	Stapylton excluded in Pride's Purge – seat vacant
		1653	Boroughbridge not represented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
		May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump as Thomas Mauleverer had died in the interim
		1660
		1661			Robert Long^[2]
		1673
		1675
		March 1679
		August 1679
		1685
		1689	Christopher Vane^[3]	Whig
		1690
		1695
		1698
		1705			Craven Peyton
		1708
		1713			Edmund Dunch	Whig
		1715			Sir Richard Steele	Whig
		1718
		March 1722	Conyers Darcy^[4]
		October 1722
		1727
		1742				Tory
		1746
		1750	Hon. Lewis Monson Watson^[5]
		1754
		1755
		1756			Earl of Euston^[6]	Whig
		1757			Thomas Thoroton
		1761			Brice Fisher
		1767
		1768
		1772
		1774			Charles Mellish^[7]
		1775
		1780
		1784
		1790			Morris Robinson
		1796	Francis Burdett^[8]	Independent Radical		Tory
		1799				Tory
		1802		Whig
		January 1806				Tory
		November 1806		Tory		Tory
		1808				Tory
		1818	Marmaduke Lawson	Whig	George Mundy	Tory
		March 1820				Radical
		June 1820	Captain George Mundy, RN^[9]	Tory^[10]		Tory^[11]
		1830		Tory^[12]		Tory^[13]

• Constituency abolished (1832)

Elections

Source: 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)

Elections in the 1800s

At the 1802 general election, Edward Berkeley Portman and John Scott were elected unopposed.

At the 1806 and 1807 general elections, William Henry Clinton and Henry Dawkins were elected unopposed.

At the Boroughbridge by-election, 1808, Henry Clinton was elected unopposed.

Elections in the 1810s

At the 1812 general election, William Henry Clinton and Henry Clinton were elected unopposed.

In the Boroughbridge by-election, 1819, Marmaduke Lawson was elected unopposed.

Elections in the 1820s

Mundy and Dawkins were seated on petition.

At the 1826 United Kingdom general election, George Mundy and Henry Dawkins were elected unopposed.

Elections in the 1830s

Notes

1. Web site: History of Parliament. 2011-09-27.
2. Created a baronet as Sir Robert Long in 1662
3. Vane was returned as MP at the election of 1689, but on petition he was unseated and Stapylton declared to have been elected in his place
4. Darcy was also elected for Richmond, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Boroughbridge
5. Watson was re-elected in 1754, but had also been elected for Kent, which he chose to represent, and did not sit again for Boroughbridge
6. Euston was elected two weeks later in a by-election for Bury St Edmunds, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Boroughbridge
7. Mellish was also elected for Pontefract, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Boroughbridge
8. Succeeded to a baronetcy as Sir Francis Burdett in 1797
9. Spooner and Lawson were initially declared re-elected at the 1820 general election, but they were unseated and Mundy and Dawkins were returned on petition
10. Web site: Casey . Martin . MUNDY, George (1777-1861), of Shipley Hall, Derbys. and 9 Cork Street, Mdx. . The History of Parliament . 25 May 2020.
11. Web site: Casey . Martin . DAWKINS, Henry (1788-1864), of Over Norton, Oxon. and 58 Green Street, Grosvenor Square, Mdx. . The History of Parliament . 25 May 2020.
12. Web site: Fisher . David R. . WETHERELL, Charles (?1770-1846), of 5 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn and 7 Whitehall Place, Mdx. . The History of Parliament . 25 May 2020.
13. Web site: Jenkins . Terry . ATTWOOD, Matthias (1779-1851), of 27 Gracechurch Street, London and Dulwich Hill House, Surr. . The History of Parliament . 25 May 2020.

References

• Robert Beatson, "A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament" (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) https://books.google.com/books?id=Gh2wKY2rkDUC&q=Return+of+Members+of+Parliament
• Michael Brock, The Great Reform Act (London: Hutchinson, 1973)
• 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) https://web.archive.org/web/20150904125310/http://www2.odl.ox.ac.uk/gsdl/cgi-bin/library?e=p-000-00---0modhis06--00-0-0-0prompt-10---4------0-1l--1-en-50---20-about---00001-001-1-1isoZz-8859Zz-1-0&a=d&cl=CL1
• J E Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
• J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Frederic A Youngs, jr, "Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II" (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991)