Newport (Isle of Wight) (UK Parliament constituency)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other UK Parliament constituencies of the same name see Newport (UK Parliament constituency).
| Newport Borough constituency | |
|---|---|
| Created: | 1295, 1585 |
| Abolished: | 1885 |
| Type: | House of Commons
<tr><td>Members:</td><td>two (1584 to 1867), then one</td></tr> |
Newport is a former parliamentary borough located in Newport (Isle of Wight), abolished in 1885. (Prior to the Great Reform Act of 1832 there was also a separate Newport parliamentary borough in Cornwall.)
[edit] History
The borough was first represented in the parliament of 1295, and returned two Members of Parliament from 1584 to 1867. In 1867 its representation was reduced to a single seat, and the constituency was abolished altogether in 1885.
Between 1807 and 1811 its two seats were held by two future Prime Ministers: Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington (who also found himself elected to two other seats at the same time), and Henry Temple (later Lord Palmerston), who would go on to become one of the United Kingdom's most notable Prime Ministers. Palmerston's late father had been unable to convert his Irish title into a United Kingdom peerage, therefore the young politician was able to enter the Commons. The local patron arranging the deal was Sir Leonard Holmes, who made it a condition that they never visited the borough!
The borough was also represented by two other future Prime Ministers in the 1820s. George Canning was MP for Newport when appointed Prime Minister in 1827; however, under the law as it then stood a minister accepting office automatically vacated his seat and had to stand for re-election to the Commons, and Canning chose to stand at Seaford, a government pocket borough in Sussex, rather than fight Newport again. In the by-election that followed at Newport, the vacancy was filled by the election of the Honourable William Lamb, later 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose father had also represented the borough in the 1790s. However, Lamb remained MP for Newport for only two weeks before also being elected for Bletchingley, which he preferred to represent.
[edit] See also
- Isle of Wight (UK Parliament constituency)
- Newtown (UK Parliament constituency)
- Politics of the Isle of Wight
[edit] References
- D Englefield, J Seaton & I White, Facts About the British Prime Ministers<i> (London: Mansell, 1995)
- Frederic A Youngs, Jr, <i>Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Volume I<i> (London: Offices of the Royal Historical Society, 1979)
- F W S Craig, <i>British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (2nd Ed)<i> (Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
