West Kent (UK Parliament constituency)

West Kent
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
County	Kent
1832–1885
Number of members	2
Created from	Kent

West Kent (formally known as "Kent, Western") was a county constituency in Kent in South East England. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

History

The constituency was created by the Reform Act 1832 for the 1832 general election, and abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election.

All three two-member constituencies in Kent were abolished in 1885: East Kent, Mid Kent and West Kent. They were replaced by eight new single-member constituencies: Ashford, Dartford, Faversham, Isle of Thanet, Medway, St Augustine's, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge.

Members of Parliament

Election	1st Member		1st Party	2nd Member		2nd Party
1832		Thomas Law Hodges	Liberal		Thomas Rider	Liberal
1835					Sir William Geary, Bt	Conservative
1838 by-election					Sir Edmund Filmer, Bt	Conservative
1841		Viscount Marsham	Conservative
1845 by-election		Thomas Austen	Conservative
1847		Thomas Law Hodges	Liberal
1852		William Masters Smith	Conservative
Feb 1857 by-election					Charles Wykeham Martin	Liberal
Apr 1857		James Whatman	Liberal
1859		Viscount Holmesdale	Conservative		Sir Edmund Filmer, Bt	Conservative
1865					William Hart Dyke	Conservative
1868		Sir Charles Mills, Bt	Conservative		John Gilbert Talbot	Conservative
1878 by-election					Viscount Lewisham	Conservative
1885	constituency abolished

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "K" (part 1)
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 406–407. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.