Breconshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Breconshire
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
1542–1918
Number of members	one
Replaced by	Brecon and Radnor

Breconshire or Brecknockshire was a constituency in Wales which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the English Parliament, and later to the Parliament of Great Britain and of the United Kingdom, between 1542 and 1918. (Historically, the "-shire" suffix was often omitted, leading to potential confusion with the Brecon borough constituency, which existed until 1885.)

History

Like the rest of Wales, Breconshire was given the right to representation by the Act of Union 1536, and first returned an MP to the Parliament of 1542. The constituency consisted of the historic county of Brecknockshire. (Although the county town, Brecon, was a borough which elected an MP in its own right, it was not excluded from the county constituency, and owning property within the borough could confer a vote at the county election.) The county elected one MP, who was chosen by the first past the post electoral system - when there was a contest at all, which was rare.

As in other county constituencies, the franchise until 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. At the time of the Great Reform Act in 1832, Breconshire had a population of approximately 47,800, but the rarity of contested elections makes it difficult to make a reliable estimate of the number qualified to vote; the greatest number ever recorded as voting before the Reform Act was 1,641 at the general election of 1818.

For centuries before 1832, Breconshire politics was dominated by the Morgan family of Tredegar, who were usually able to nominate the county's MP without opposition (as was also the case in Brecon borough). The changes introduced by the Reform Act did little to shake this hold, and a Morgan was still sitting unopposed in the 1860s. The Reform Act extended the county franchise slightly, allowing tenants-at-will, copyholders and leaseholders to vote, but Breconshire's electorate was still only 1,668 at the first post-Reform election, though it grew in the subsequent half-century.

Breconshire was always an almost entirely rural constituency, mountainous and offering poor resources for its agricultural population. The industrial revolution, however, brought coal-mining to the south of the county, and by the late 19th century this was much the most important economic activity and was probably the most important factor in its developing a political mind of its own. By the 1890s it had abandoned its loyalty to the (Conservative) Morgans, and like other industrial constituencies in Wales was a safe Liberal seat.

By the time of the 1911 census, the population of Breconshire was 63,036, and there were around 13,000 voters on the register around the outbreak of the First World War, a respectable size, but neighbouring Radnorshire with barely 6,000 voters was too small to survive. With effect from the 1918 general election, the two constituencies were merged, to form a new Brecon and Radnor constituency.

Members of Parliament

1542-1640

Parliament	Member
1545	John Games (or ap Morgan) [1]
1547	Sir John Price [1]
1553 (Mar)	Sir Roger Vaughan[1]
1553 (Oct)	Sir Roger Vaughan[1]
1554 (Apr)	Sir Roger Vaughan[1]
1554 (Nov)	Rhys Vaughan[1]
1558	Watkin (or Walter) Herbert[1]
1559 (Jan)	Sir Roger Vaughan[2]
1562 (Dec)	Rowland Vaughan, died and replaced 1566 by Matthew Arundell[2]
1571	Sir Roger Vaughan [2]
1572	Thomas Games [2]
1584 (Nov)	Thomas Games [2]
1586	Thomas Games [2]
1588–1589	Sir Robert Knollys [2]
1593	Sir Robert Knollys [2]
1597 (Sep)	Sir Robert Knollys [2]
1601 (Oct)	Sir Robert Knollys [2]
1614	Sir Charles Vaughan
1621	Sir Henry Williams
1625	Sir Charles Vaughan
1626	John Price
1628	Henry Williams
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned

1640-1918

Year		Member	Party
April 1640		William Morgan	Parliamentarian
November 1640		William Morgan	Parliamentarian
1650		Colonel Philip Jones
1653	Breconshire was not separately represented in the Barebones Parliament
Representation increased to two members, 1654
1654		Lord Herbert and Edmund Jones
1656		Colonel Philip Jones and Evan Lewis
Representation reverted to one member, 1659
January 1659		Edmund Jones
May 1659		Colonel Philip Jones
April 1660		Sir William Lewis
April 1661		Sir Henry Williams
November 1661		John Jeffreys
1662		Edward Proger
1679		Richard Williams
1685		Edward Jones
1690		Rowland Gwynne	Whig
1695		Edward Jones	Tory
1697		Sir Edward Williams	Tory
1698		Sir Rowland Gwynne	Whig
1702		John Jeffreys	Tory
1705		Sir Edward Williams	Tory
1721		William Gwyn Vaughan
1734		John Jeffreys
1747		Thomas Morgan
1769		Charles Morgan
1787		Sir Charles Gould (later Sir Charles Gould Morgan) [3]
1806		Thomas Wood	Tory
1832			Conservative
1847		Sir Joseph Bailey	Conservative
1858		Hon. Godfrey Morgan	Conservative
1875		William Fuller-Maitland	Liberal
1895		Charles Morley	Liberal
1906		Sidney Robinson	Liberal
1918	Constituency abolished

Election results

Elections in the 1880s

General Election 1885: Breconshire [4] Electorate 9,520
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	William Fuller-Maitland	4,784	59.3
	Conservative	Hon. A J Morgan	3,282	40.7
Majority			1,502	18.6
Turnout				84.7
	Liberal hold		Swing

General Election 1886: Breconshire [4] Electorate 9,520
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	William Fuller-Maitland	unopposed	n/a	n/a
	Liberal hold		Swing	n/a

Elections in the 1890s

General Election 1892: Breconshire [4] Electorate 10,551
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	William Fuller-Maitland	4,676	57.8	n/a
	Conservative	Thomas Wood	3,418	42.2	n/a
Majority			1,258	15.6	n/a
Turnout				76.7	n/a
	Liberal hold		Swing	n/a

Charles Morley

General Election 1895: Breconshire [4] Electorate 10,849
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Charles Morley	4,594	55.9
	Conservative	Thomas Wood	3,631	44.1
Majority			963	11.8
Turnout				75.8
	Liberal hold		Swing

Elections in the 1900s

General Election 1900: Breconshire [4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Charles Morley	unopposed	n/a	n/a
	Liberal hold		Swing	n/a

Sidney Robinson

General Election 1906: Breconshire [4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sidney Robinson	5,776	62.3
	Conservative	Hon. Robert Charles Devereux	3,499	37.7
Majority			2,277	24.6
Turnout				75.8
	Liberal hold		Swing

Elections in the 1910s

General Election January 1910: Breconshire [4] Electorate 13,432
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sidney Robinson	6,335	62.1
	Conservative	Hon. Robert Charles Devereux	3,865	37.9
Majority			2,470	24.2
Turnout				75.9
	Liberal hold		Swing

General Election December 1910: Breconshire [4] Electorate 13,432
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sidney Robinson	5,511	60.3
	Conservative	John Conway Lloyd	3,631	39.7
Majority
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

References

1. "History of Parliament". Retrieved 2011-08-30.
2. "History of Parliament". Retrieved 2011-08-30.
3. Adopted the surname Morgan in 1792
4. British parliamentary election results, 1885-1918 (Craig)

• 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)
• The Constitutional Year Book for 1913 (London: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 1913)
• F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
• Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910 (London: Macmillan, 1967)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 5)