Hampshire (UK Parliament constituency)
Hampshire was a county constituency of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which returned two Knights of the Shire to the House of Commons from 1295 until 1832.
History
The constituency consisted of the historic county of Hampshire, including the Isle of Wight.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. 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 would have required soldiers stationed at Winchester to depart during the election, leaving prisoners of war unguarded.
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 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, 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, 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.
Members of Parliament
MPs 1295–1640
| Parliament | First member | Second member |
| 1336–1344 | John de Hampton | |
| 1362 | Thomas de Hampton | |
| 1364 | Sir Thomas Foxle | |
| 1369 | Sir Bernard Brocas | |
| 1371 | Sir Bernard Brocas | |
| 1372 | Sir Thomas Foxle | |
| 1373 | Sir Bernard Brocas | |
| 1380 | Sir Bernard Brocas | |
| 1380 | Sir Bernard Brocas | |
| 1383 | Henry Popham | - |
| 1384 | William Sturmy | |
| 1385 | Henry Popham | - |
| 1386 | Sir Bernard Brocas | Sir John Sandys |
| 1388 | Sir Thomas Worting | Henry Popham |
| 1388 | Sir Thomas Worting | Henry Popham |
| 1390 | Sir John Sandys | John Bettesthorne |
| 1390 | Sir William Sturmy | Henry Popham |
| 1391 | Sir John Sandys | Robert Cholmley |
| 1393 | Sir Bernard Brocas | Sir John Sandys |
| 1394 | Henry Popham | John Hampton |
| 1395 | Sir Bernard Brocas | Robert Cholmley |
| 1397 | Sir John Popham | Robert Cholmley |
| 1397 | Robert More | Robert Cholmley |
| 1399 | Sir Thomas Skelton | Sir Nicholas Dabrichecourt |
| 1401 | Sir John Lisle | Robert Cholmley |
| 1402 | Sir John Popham | Edward Cowdray |
| 1404 | Sir John Lisle | Sir John Popham |
| 1404 | Henry Popham | - |
| 1406 | Sir John Berkeley | Sir Thomas Skelton |
| 1407 | Sir John Popham | William Fauconer |
| 1410 | - | |
| 1411 | John Uvedale | William Fauconer |
| 1413 | - | |
| 1413 | John Uvedale | John Arnold |
| 1414 | Sir Walter Sandys | William Brocas of The Vine |
| 1414 | Lewis John | Thomas Wallop |
| 1415 | William Brocas of The Vine | John Harris |
| 1416 | Bernard Brocas of Bradley | John Uvedale |
| 1416 | - | |
| 1417 | Edward Cowdray | John Lisle |
| 1419 | John Uvedale | Thomas Wallop |
| 1420 | Sir Stephen Popham | John Kirkby |
| 1421 | John Uvedale | Robert Dingley |
| 1421 | William Brocas of The Vine | Richard Wallop |
| 1422 | William Brocas of the Vine | John Lisle |
| 1423 | Sir Stephen Popham | Edward Cowdray |
| 1425 | Sir Stephen Popham | |
| 1426 | Sir John Boys | |
| 1431 | Sir Stephen Popham | |
| 1432 | John Hampton | |
| 1439 | Sir John Popham | |
| 1442 | Sir Stephen Popham | |
| 1449 | Sir John Popham | - |
| 1510–1523 | No names known | No names known |
| 1529 | Sir William Paulet | Sir Richard Sandys |
| 1536 | - | |
| 1539 | Thomas Wriothesley | Richard Worsley |
| 1542 | Thomas Wriothesley | Sir Thomas Lisle |
| 1545 | - | |
| 1547 | Sir Henry Seymour | Thomas White |
| 1553 | Sir Richard Cotton | ? |
| 1553 | Sir Thomas White | Nicholas Tichborne |
| 1554 | Sir Thomas White | Sir John Mason |
| 1554 | Sir Thomas White | John Norton |
| 1555 | Sir Thomas White | John Norton |
| 1558 | Sir Thomas White | Sir John Mason |
| 1558/9 | Sir John Mason | Sir Thomas White |
| 1562 | Sir John Mason, died and replaced 1566 by Sir John Berkeley | William Uvedale |
| 1566 | Sir Henry Wallop | - |
| 1571 | Hon. Henry Radclyffe | Richard Norton |
| 1572 | Edward Horsey | Richard Norton |
| 1584 | Sir George Carey | Richard Kingsmill |
| 1588 | Sir George Carey | Thomas West |
| 1593 | Sir George Carey | Benjamin Tichborne |
| 1597 | Thomas Fleming | Richard Mill |
| 1601 | Sir Henry Wallop | Sir Edward More |
| 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 | No Parliaments convened |
MPs 1640–1832
- 1653: Richard Norton; Richard Major; John Hildesley
- 1654: Richard Lord Cromwell; Richard Norton; Richard Major; John St Barbe; Robert Wallop; Francis Rivet; Edward Hooper; John Bulkeley
- 1656: Richard Lord Cromwell; William Goffe; Robert Wallop; Richard Norton; Thomas Cole ; John Bulkeley; Edward Hooper; Richard Cobb
Election results