Boroughbridge (UK Parliament constituency)

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.

Boroughbridge
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
1553–1832
Seats	Two

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 [1]
1554 (Nov)	Christopher Wray	John Holmes[1]
1555	Christopher Wray	Robert Kempe[1]
1558	William Fairfax	Christopher Wray [1]
1558–9	Sir John York	Richard Bunny[1]
1562–3	John Astley	Thomas Disney[1]
1571	Cotton Gargrave	Thomas Boynton[1]
1572 (Apr)	Thomas Eynns (died 1578)	Cotton Gargrave[1]
1584 (Oct)	Henry Cheke	Nicholas Faunt[1]
1586 (Sep)	George Savile	Robert Briggs[1]
1588–9	Sir Edward Fitton	Francis Moore[1]
1593	John Brograve	Vincent Skinner
1597 (Sep)	Henry Fanshawe	Thomas Crompton[1]
1601	Richard Whalley	Thomas Fairfax [1]
1604	John Ferne	Sir Henry Jenkins
1609	Sir Thomas Vavasour	Sir Henry Jenkins
1614	Sir Ferdinando Fairfax	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	Ferdinando, Lord Fairfax		Francis Neville
		November 1640	Sir Philip Stapylton (d. September 1647)	Parliamentarian	Thomas Mauleverer	Parliamentarian
		1648	Henry Stapylton
		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
		January 1659	Colonel Laurence Parsons		Robert Stapylton
		May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump as Thomas Mauleverer had died in the interim
		1660	Conyers Darcy		Sir Henry Stapylton
		1661	Sir Richard Mauleverer, Bt		Robert Long[2]
		1673			Sir Henry Goodricke, Bt
		1675	Sir Michael Warton
		March 1679	Sir Thomas Mauleverer, Bt
		August 1679			Sir John Brookes, Bt
		1685			Sir Henry Goodricke, Bt
		1689	Christopher Vane[3]	Whig
		1690	Sir Brian Stapylton
		1695	Thomas Harrison
		1698	Sir Brian Stapylton
		1705	John Stapylton		Craven Peyton
		1708	Sir Brian Stapylton
		1713			Edmund Dunch	Whig
		1715	Thomas Wilkinson		Sir Richard Steele	Whig
		1718	Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Bt
		March 1722	Conyers Darcy[4]		James Tyrrell
		October 1722	Joseph Danvers
		1727	George Gregory
		1742			William Murray	Tory
		1746	Earl of Dalkeith
		1750	Hon. Lewis Monson Watson[5]
		1754	John Fuller
		1755	Sir Cecil Bisshopp, Bt
		1756			Earl of Euston[6]	Whig
		1757			Thomas Thoroton
		1761			Brice Fisher
		1767			James West the younger
		1768	Nathaniel Cholmley		James West
		1772			Major-General Henry Clinton
		1774	Anthony Eyre		Charles Mellish[7]
		1775			Colonel William Phillips
		1780			Charles Ambler, KC
		1784	Sir Richard Sutton, Bt		The Viscount Palmerston
		1790			Morris Robinson
		1796	Francis Burdett[8]	Independent Radical	Sir John Scott	Tory
		1799			Hon. John Scott	Tory
		1802	Edward Berkeley Portman	Whig
		January 1806			Viscount Castlereagh	Tory
		November 1806	Brigadier William Henry Clinton	Tory	Henry Dawkins	Tory
		1808			Henry Clinton	Tory
		1818	Marmaduke Lawson	Whig	George Mundy	Tory[9]
		March 1820			Richard Spooner	Radical
		June 1820	Captain George Mundy, RN[10]	Tory[9]	Lt Colonel Henry Dawkins	Tory[11]
		1830	Sir Charles Wetherell	Tory[12]	Matthias Attwood	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.

General election 1818: Boroughbridge (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Tory	Marmaduke Lawson	37	39.8	N/A
	Tory	George Mundy	33	35.5	N/A
	Tory	Thomas Murdoch	25	24.7	N/A
Majority			8	8.8	N/A
Turnout			93		N/A

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

Elections in the 1820s

General election 1820: Boroughbridge (2 seats)

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Tory	Richard Spooner	38	28.6	N/A
	Tory	Marmaduke Lawson	38	28.6	N/A
	Tory	George Mundy	28	21.0	N/A
	Tory	Henry Dawkins (1788–1864)	28	21.0	N/A
Majority			10	7.6	N/A
Turnout			133		N/A
	Tory hold		Swing

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

General election, 2 August 1830: Boroughbridge^[14]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Tory	Charles Wetherell	38	32.8
	Tory	Matthias Attwood	38	32.8
	Tory	Andrew Lawson	20	17.2
	Tory	William Alexander Mackinnon	20	17.2
Majority			18	15.6
Turnout			c. 58	c. 89.2
Registered electors			c. 65
	Tory hold
	Tory hold

General election, 29 April 1831: Boroughbridge^[14]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Tory	Charles Wetherell	Unopposed
	Tory	Matthias Attwood	Unopposed
Registered electors			c. 65
	Tory hold
	Tory hold