Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency) explained

Cambridge University
Type:	University
Parliament:	uk
Year:	1603
Abolished:	1950
Seats:	2
Next:	Cambridge

Cambridge University was a university constituency electing two members to the British House of Commons, from 1603 to 1950.

Franchise and method of election

This university constituency was created by a Royal Charter of 1603. It was abolished in 1950 by the Representation of the People Act 1948.

The constituency was not a geographical area. Its electorate consisted of the graduates of the University of Cambridge. Before 1918 the franchise was restricted to male graduates with a Doctorate or Master of Arts degree. Sedgwick records that there were 377 electors in 1727. For the 1754–1790 period, Namier and Brooke estimated the electorate at about 500.

The constituency returned two Members of Parliament. Before 1918 they were elected by plurality-at-large voting, but from 1918 onwards the two members were elected by the Single Transferable Vote method.

History

In the early 18th century, the electors of both English universities were mostly Tories, but the Whig ministers of King George I were able to persuade him to use his royal prerogative to confer Cambridge doctorates on a large number of Whigs, so that from 1727 the university largely returned Whig representatives. At Oxford, the King did not enjoy the same prerogative power, so that the University of Oxford constituency remained Tory, and indeed often Jacobite, in its preferences.

The leading 18th-century Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1748 to 1768 and recommended to the electors suitable candidates to represent them in Parliament. This practice continued under his successor, another Whig Duke and Prime Minister, Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the university from 1768 to 1811. However, Grafton was less influential as a politician than Newcastle had been and also less attentive towards the university, and as a result some of his nominations came in for criticism, notably that of his friend Richard Croftes.

Croftes was far from typical of a university member of parliament: he was neither the son of a peer, like the Hon. John Townshend, the Marquess of Granby, and Grafton's own son the Earl of Euston, nor a distinguished lawyer-politician, such as William de Grey, James Mansfield, and Sir Vicary Gibbs, nor a prominent political figure like William Pitt the Younger and Lord Henry Petty. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Pittite and Tory candidates began to be elected. At the appearance of this political development, some of the Pittite members, including the younger William Pitt himself, one of the members for the university from 1784 to 1806, described themselves as Whigs. As time passed, the division between the 19th century Tory and Whig parties became clearer.

The future Prime Minister, Viscount Palmerston, retained his university seat as a Whig after he left the Tory ranks, but in 1831 he was defeated. After Palmerston ceased to represent the university he was elected by a territorial constituency. From then until the 1920s, all of the university's members were Tories and/or Conservatives.

Even after the introduction of the single transferable vote in 1918, most of the members continued to be elected as Conservatives.

Members of Parliament

This is a list of people who have been elected to represent this university in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

1603 to 1660

Constituency created 1603

Year	First member	Second member
1604		Henry Mountlow
1614		Sir Francis Bacon
1621		Barnaby Gough
1624		Barnaby Gough
1625	Sir Robert Naunton	Sir Albert Morton
1626		Sir John Coke
1628–1629		Sir John Coke
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned
Apr 1640		Henry Lucas
Nov 1640		Henry Lucas
Eden died 1644 replaced by Nathaniel Bacon
1648	Lucas secluded in Pride's Purge
1654		(one seat only)
1656		(one seat only)
1659		Thomas Sclater

1660 to 1784

Year	Member	Party	Member	Party
1660 Apr	George Monck		Thomas Crouch <	-- (to 1679) 18 Oct 1607-30 Aug 1679 -->
1660 Jun
1661
1667
1679
1681
1689				Whig
1690
1692		Whig
1695
1698
1701				Court Whig
1702				Tory
1705		Tory		Tory
1710				Tory
1720				Tory
1727				Whig
1768		Rockingham Whig
1770	William de Grey
1771
1774
1779				<	--from here to 1882 see https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc2.ark%3A%2F13960%2Ft5t72f113&seq=79-->
1780		Whig		<

1784 to 1950

Year		Party	Party
		Tory¹^[1]	Whig
		Whig
		Tory
		Tory	Tory
		Whig
		Tory
		Tory
		Tory
		Whig
1830		Whig	Whig
		Tory	Tory
1832		Tory	Tory
1834		Conservative	Conservative
			Conservative
			Conservative
1856		Conservative	Conservative
			Conservative
1868			Conservative
		Conservative	Conservative
		Conservative	Conservative
	Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb ²	Conservative	Conservative
	Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb ²	Conservative	Conservative
			Conservative
		Conservative	Conservative
		Co. Conservative ³	Co. Conservative³
		Ind. Liberal⁴	Conservative
	Sir Geoffrey G. Butler ⁵	Conservative	Conservative
	Sir Geoffrey G. Butler ⁵	Conservative	Conservative
		Conservative
		Conservative
			Ind. Conservative⁴
			Independent

Notes:-

¹ Pitt called himself a Whig, but is usually retrospectively regarded as a Tory since most of his followers (whether their background was in the Whig or Tory tradition) came to call themselves the Tory Party in the decade after Pitt's death.
² Jebb died on 10 December 1905 – seat vacant at dissolution.
³ Co. is an abbreviation for Coalition.
⁴ Ind. is an abbreviation for Independent.
⁵ Sir Geoffrey G. Butler died on 2 May 1929 – seat vacant at dissolution.

Election by block vote 1715–1918

1710s –1720s –1730s –1740s –1750s –1760s –1770s –1780s –1790s –1800s –1810s –1820s –1830s –1840s –1850s –1860s –1870s –1880s –1890s –1900s –1910s

Elections in the 1720s

Death of Paske

Note (1722): Stooks Smith gives Willoughby 319 votes.

Note (1727): Unusually, for a pre-1832 election, Stooks Smith records the total number of electors for the constituency as well as the number who voted; so a turnout figure can be calculated.

Elections in the 1730s

Note (1734): Goodrick was an Opposition Whig

Elections in the 1740s

Seat vacated when Finch was appointed a Groom of the Bedchamber

Elections in the 1750s

Seat vacated when Finch was appointed to an office

Elections in the 1760s

Seat vacated when Finch was appointed to an office

Elections in the 1770s

Seat vacated on the appointment of Yorke as Lord Chancellor

Seat vacated on the appointment of de Grey as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas

Succession of Granby as the 4th Duke of Rutland

Elections in the 1780s

Note (1780): Stooks Smith records Townshend as getting 237 votes.
Seat vacated on Townshend being appointed to an office

Seat vacated on Townshend being appointed to an office

Seat vacated on Mansfield being appointed as Solicitor General for England and Wales

The 1784 election was broadly a contest between the new government of Pitt and the ousted Fox-North Coalition, in which both Townshend and Mansfield had held office.

Elections in the 1790s

Note (1790): Party labels in the 1790–1832 period follow Stooks Smith, who classifies Pitt and his Pittite supporters as Tories without regard to what they would have actually called themselves.
Seat vacated on Pitt being appointed Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports

Seat vacated on Euston being appointed to an office

Elections in the 1800s

Seat vacated on Pitt being appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer

Death of Pitt

Palmerston was a Peer of Ireland

Elections in the 1810s

Succession of Euston as the 4th Duke of Grafton

Seat vacated on Gibbs being appointed a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas

Elections in the 1820s

Death of Smyth

Seat vacated on the appointment of Copley as Lord Chancellor and creation as 1st Baron Lyndhurst

Note (1827): Unusually for a pre-1832 election Stooks Smith provides a total electorate figure, so a turnout percentage can be calculated. See the 1727 result above for another instance.
Seat vacated on the appointment of Tindal as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas

Elections in the 1830s

Seat vacated on the appointment of Palmerston as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs

Manners-Sutton created 'The 1st Viscount Canterbury'.

Note (1837): McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book classifies Law as a Peelite between this election and that of 1847.

Elections in the 1840s

Note (1841): McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book classifies Goulburn as a Liberal Conservative and Law as a Peelite for this election.
Goulburn appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Note 1 (1847): 3,800 registered electors; 4,682 votes cast; minimum possible turnout estimated by dividing votes by 2. To the extent that electors did not use both their votes, the figure will be an underestimate.
Note 2 (1847): McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book classifies Goulburn as a Liberal Conservative and Law as a Peelite for this election.

Elections in the 1850s

Death of Law.

Note (1852): McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book classifies Goulburn as a Liberal Conservative for this election.
Death of Goulburn.

Appointment of Walpole as Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Elections in the 1860s

Appointment of Walpole as Secretary of State for the Home Department.

Appointment of Selwyn as Solicitor-General.

Appointment of Selwyn as Judge of the Court of Appeal in Chancery.

Elections in the 1880s

Walpole's resignation caused a by-election.

Raikes was appointed Postmaster General, requiring a by-election.

Beresford-Hope's death caused a by-election.

Elections in the 1910s

Elections 1918–1950

General elections from 1918, when most constituencies polled on the same day, were on different polling days than for territorial constituencies. The polls for university constituencies were open for five days. The elections were conducted by Single Transferable Vote.

Elections in the 1920s

As two candidates achieved the quota only one count was necessary

As two candidates achieved the quota only one count was necessary

Elections in the 1930s

As two candidates achieved the quota only one count was necessary

Elections in the 1940s

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 (Macmillan Press 1977)
British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1974)
British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–1949, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press, revised edition 1977)
McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book: British Election Results 1832–1918 (8th edition, The Harvester Press 1971)
The House of Commons 1715–1754, by Romney Sedgwick (HMSO 1970)
The House of Commons 1754–1790, by Sir Lewis Namier and John Brooke (HMSO 1964)
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)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume I 1832–1885, edited by M. Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume II 1886–1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1978)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume III 1919–1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1979)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume IV 1945–1979, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1981)

Specific

Book: Stooks Smith , Henry. . . The Parliaments of England . 1844-1850 . 2nd . 1973 . Parliamentary Research Services . Chichester . 0-900178-13-2 . 28–31 .