Whitchurch (UK Parliament constituency)

Whitchurch
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1586–1832
Number of members	Two

Whitchurch was a parliamentary borough in the English County of Hampshire, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1586 until 1832, when the borough was abolished by the Great Reform Act.

History

Whitchurch was one of a number of new boroughs created in the south of England by Queen Elizabeth I. The borough consisted of most of the town of Whitchurch in northern Hampshire, a market town which by the 19th century had shrunk to insignificance. In 1831, the population of the borough was approximately 1,673, and the town contained 261 houses of which 214 were within the borough.

Following a House of Commons decision in 1708, the right to vote was exercised by the freeholders of any tenements which had not been divided since the time of William III (or by their husbands if the freeholder was a woman). Whitchurch was therefore in effect a "burgage" borough (one where the vote was tied to ownership of specific properties). There were still competitive elections around the turn of the 18th century when no one influence was entirely predominant, and it is recorded that in 1685 it was one of the constituencies that King James II thought worth visiting on an electioneering tour soon after his accession. But by 1700 the Duke of Bolton, as the most powerful local landowner, could generally see his preferred candidates elected, and by the middle of the century, as in other burgage boroughs, a majority of the burgages were concentrated in the hands of two owners and Whitchurch had become an utterly secure pocket borough.

By the time of the Great Reform Act the number of "voters" was estimated to be about 84, but there had been no contested election since 1721; only 13 of the burgages were not owned by one of the two patrons, according to Oldfield, writing in 1816. Of course, had there been an election the two proprietors themselves could not have voted more than once; but they would have been able to simply make a temporary conveyance of each property to a reliable deputy, as frequently happened elsewhere, to ensure that their majority share of the ownership was reflected in the voting.

In the 1740s, these "patrons" were John Selwyn and John Wallop, 1st Earl of Portsmouth, who chose one MP each; Selwyn invariably made use of the seat for himself. After Selwyn's death in 1751 his share was inherited by his son-in-law, Thomas Townshend, who used the seat for his son, a rising minister. By the 1770s the former Portsmouth share of the representation was also in Townshend hands, and was used to find a seat for another relative, George Brodrick, 4th Viscount Midleton.

Whitchurch was abolished as a separate constituency by the Reform Act, the town being included in the Northern division of Hampshire thereafter.

Members of Parliament

1584-1640

Parliament	First member	Second member
1584	John Cooper	Henry Audley [1]
1586	John Cooper	Henry Audley [1]
1588	Richard Fiennes	Henry Audley [1]
1593	Robert West	Richard Theakston [1]
1597	Thomas Henshaw	Richard Carey [1]
1601	Thomas Henshaw	Thomas Crompton [1]
1604	Thomas Brookes	Sir Richard Paulet
1614	Sir Edward Barrett	Sir Richard Paulet
1621-1622	Sir Thomas Jervoise	Sir Robert Oxenbridge
1624	Sir Henry Wallop	Thomas Jervoise
1625	Robert Wallop	Sir Robert Oxenbridge
1626	Sir Thomas Jervoise	Sir Robert Oxenbridge
1628	Sir Thomas Jervoise	Sir John Jephson
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned

1640-1832

Year		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
April 1640		Sir Thomas Jervoise			Richard Jervoise	Parliamentarian
November 1640
1645					Thomas Hussey
1653	Whitchurch was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
January 1659		Sir Henry Vane			Robert Reynolds
May 1659	Not represented in the restored Rump
April 1660		Robert Wallop			Giles Hungerford
June 1660		Henry Wallop
1674		Richard Ayliffe
1679					Henry Wallop
1685		Lord James Russell
1692					Christopher Stokes
1698					Richard Wollaston
1701		Major-General John Shrimpton
January 1708		Frederick Tylney (see biog. under Richard Child, 1st Earl Tylney)[2]
February 1708		Charles Wither
May 1708 [3]		Thomas Lewis			Frederick Tylney
December 1708		Richard Wollaston			George William Brydges
1710		Frederick Tylney			Thomas Vernon [4]
1715		General George Carpenter
May 1721					Frederick Tylney [5]
June 1721					John Conduitt [6]	Government Whig
1722		Thomas Vernon
February 1727		Thomas Farrington
August 1727		John Selwyn
1734		John Selwyn, junior
1735					Colonel John Mordaunt	Government Whig
1741					John Wallop [7]	Government Whig
1742					William Sloper
January 1743					Charles Clarke
February 1743					Brigadier Thomas Wentworth
1747					Charles Wallop
1751		Lord Robert Bertie
1754		William Powlett			Thomas Townshend	Whig
1757		George Jennings
1768		Hon. Henry Wallop
1774		The Viscount Midleton
1783					William Selwyn
1790					Hon. John Townshend
1796		Hon. William Brodrick
1800					Hon. William Townshend
1816					Horatio George Powys Townshend	Tory
1818		Sir Samuel Scott	Tory
1826					Hon. John Robert Townshend	Tory
1831					Horatio George Powys Townshend	Tory
1832	Constituency abolished

Notes

1. "History of Parliament". History of Parliament Trust. Retrieved 2011-10-30.
2. On petition, Tylney was declared not to have been duly elected
3. On petition (in a dispute over the franchise), Lewis and Tylney were declared not to have been duly elected
4. Expelled from the House of Commons for a corrupt attempt to influence a member of the committee on the South Sea Bubble in favour of his brother-in-law, John Aislabie
5. On petition, Tylney was declared not to have been duly elected, and his opponent Conduitt was seated in his place
6. Conduitt was re-elected in 1734, but the election was disputed. He had also been elected for Southampton, which he chose to represent; when the Commons eventually decided he had also been duly elected for Whitchurch, a by-election was held.
7. Wallop was also elected for Andover, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Whitchurch

References

• Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807)
• 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)
• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
• T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847 (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 3)