Beverley (UK Parliament constituency)

Beverley
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
County	East Riding of Yorkshire
1983–1997
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Beverley and Holderness
Created from	Haltemprice
1950–1955
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	County constituency
Replaced by	Haltemprice and Howden
Created from	Buckrose, Holderness and Howdenshire
1563–1869
Number of members	Two
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Replaced by	East Riding of Yorkshire
Created from	Yorkshire
1295–1306
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Replaced by	Yorkshire

Beverley has been the name of a parliamentary constituency in the East Riding of Yorkshire for three separate periods. From medieval times until 1869, it was a parliamentary borough, consisting solely of the market town of Beverley, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The name was revived for a single-member county constituency created in 1950, but abolished in 1955, and again between the 1983 and 1997 general elections, after which the Beverley constituency was largely incorporated into the new Beverley and Holderness constituency.

History

The Parliamentary Borough

Beverley was first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295, but after 1306 it did not elect members again until 1563. Thereafter it maintained two members continuously until being disfranchised in 1870. The borough consisted of the three parishes of the town of Beverley, and by 1831 had a population of 7,432 and 1,928 houses. The right of election was vested not in the population as a whole, but in the freemen of the borough, whether resident or not; at the contested election of 1826, 2,276 votes were cast. The town was of a sufficient size for the borough to retain its two members in the Great Reform Act of 1832, although its boundaries were slightly extended to include some outlying fringes, increasing the population by roughly 800.

For much of the borough's history, elections in Beverley were notorious for their corruption. In 1727, one of the victorious candidates was unseated on petition, his agents were imprisoned and Parliament passed a new Bribery Act as a result. Between 1857 and 1868 six petitions were lodged against election results, of which three succeeded in voiding the election and unseating one or more of the victors. After the 1868 election, the writ for the borough was suspended and a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the conduct of elections in Beverley; when it reported that it had found proof of extensive bribery, an Act of Parliament was passed permanently depriving Beverley of the right to return Members of Parliament, abolishing the constituency and incorporating it within the East Riding constituency.

The novelist Anthony Trollope was one of the defeated candidates in the final corrupt election for which Beverley was disfranchised. He drew on his experience directly for his description of the Percycross election in his novel Ralph the Heir, and also told the story in his Autobiography. He found that corruption was taken for granted and that the price of a vote was between 15 shillings and £1. His unsuccessful campaign cost him £400.

1950 to 1955

The Beverley constituency which existed from 1950 to 1955 was a predominantly rural one. Under the boundary revisions introduced by the Representation of the People Act 1948, which came into effect at the 1950 general election, the three existing county constituencies of the East Riding were abolished, and the county was divided into two new constituencies, each named after their biggest towns - Bridlington and Beverley. The new Beverley constituency comprised the western half of the Riding, including in addition to the borough of Beverley itself the town of Norton and the rural districts of Beverley, Derwent, Howden, Norton and Pocklington. This encompassed parts of all three of the county's previously existing constituencies (Buckrose, Holderness and Howdenshire).

The Beverley constituency was abolished in further boundary changes implemented at the 1955 general election, being divided between the new Haltemprice and Howden seats.

1983 to 1997

Beverley again became a constituency name in 1983, this time for a constituency mostly suburban in character. The new constituency replaced, and strongly resembled, the Haltemprice constituency which had been introduced in 1955: its main components apart from Beverley were the prosperous suburbs to the north and west of Hull, such as Cottingham, Anlaby and Kirk Ella.

The Beverley constituency was abolished in 1997 general election, Beverley itself moving to the new Beverley and Holderness constituency.

Boundaries

1950-1955: The Municipal Borough of Beverley, the Urban District of Norton, and the Rural Districts of Beverley, Derwent, Howden, Norton, and Pocklington.

1983-1997: The East Yorkshire Borough of Beverley wards of Anlaby, Brough, Castle, Hessle East, Hessle West, Kirk Ella, Leconfield, Leven, Mill Beck and Croxby, Minster North, Minster South, Molescroft, Priory, St Mary's East, St Mary's West, Springfield, Swanland, Tickton, Willerby, and Woodmansey.

Members of Parliament

Beverley borough

1563-1660

Parliament	Year	First member	Second member
Parliament of 1563-1567		Nicholas Bacon	Robert Hall
Parliament of 1571		Edward Ellerker	Thomas Layton
Parliament of 1572-1583		Richard Topcliffe	Thomas Aglionby
Parliament of 1584-1585		Robert Wrote	John Stanhope
Parliament of 1586-1587		Michael Wharton	George Purefoy
Parliament of 1588-1589		Lancelot Alford	John Truslove
Parliament of 1593		John Mansfield	Edward Alford
Parliament of 1597-1598		Thomas Crompton	Edward Fraunceys
Parliament of 1601		Edward Fraunceys	Randolph Ewens
Parliament of 1604-1611		William Gee	Allan Percy
Addled Parliament (1614)		William Towse	Edmund Scott
Parliament of 1621-1622		Sir Christopher Hilliard
Happy Parliament (1624-1625)		Sir Henry Vane the elder, replaced 1624 by Sir Henry Carey
Useless Parliament (1625)		Sir John Hotham, Bt	Sir William Alford
Parliament of 1625-1626
Parliament of 1628-1629
No Parliament summoned 1629-1640
Short Parliament (1640)		Sir John Hotham, Bt	Michael Warton
Long Parliament (1640-1653)	1640	Sir John Hotham, Bt (Royalist) disabled to sit, September 1643	Michael Warton (Royalist) disabled to sit, January 1644
	1645	James Nelthorpe	John Nelthorpe
	1648		John Nelthorpe excluded in Pride's Purge
Barebones Parliament (1653)	Beverley not represented
First Protectorate Parliament (1654-1655)		Francis Thorpe	(One member only)
Second Protectorate Parliament (1656-1658)
Third Protectorate Parliament (1659)		Thomas Strickland	John Anlaby
Long Parliament (restored, 1659-1660)		James Nelthorpe

1660-1869

Year			First member	First party	Second member	Second party
		April 1660	Hugh Bethall		Sir John Hotham, Bt
		June 1660	Michael Warton
		1685			Sir Ralph Warton
		1689	Sir Michael Warton	Tory	Sir John Hotham, Bt
		1689			Sir John Hotham, Bt
		1690			William Gee
		1695			Ralph Warton	Tory
		1701			William Gee	Whig
		1702	Sir Charles Hotham, Bt	Whig
		1705			John Moyser
		1708			Sir Michael Warton
		1722			Michael Newton
		1723	Sir Charles Hotham, Bt	Whig
		1727	Ellerker Bradshaw	Whig	Charles Pelham	Tory
		1729	Sir Charles Hotham, Bt	Whig
		1734			Ellerker Bradshaw	Whig
		1738	Charles Pelham	Tory
		1741			William Strickland
		1747			Sir William Codrington, Bt
		1754	John Tufnell
		1761	Michael Newton		George Tufnell
		1768	Hugh Bethell		Charles Anderson-Pelham
		1772	Sir Griffith Boynton, Bt
		1774	George Tufnell		Sir James Pennyman, Bt
		1780	Francis Evelyn Anderson
		1784	Sir Christopher Sykes, Bt
		1790	John Wharton	Whig
		1796	William Tatton		Napier Christie Burton
		1799	John Morritt	Tory
		1802	John Wharton	Whig
		1806			Richard Vyse
		1807			Richard William Howard Vyse
		1812			Charles Forbes	Tory
		1818			Robert Christie Burton	Tory
		1820			George Lane-Fox	Tory
		1826	John Stewart	Tory	Charles Harrison Batley	Tory
		1830	Daniel Sykes	Whig	Henry Burton	Whig
		1831	William Marshall	Whig
		1832	Hon. Charles Langdale	Whig
		1835	James Hogg	Conservative
		1837			George Lane-Fox	Conservative
		1840			Sackville Lane-Fox	Conservative
		1841			John Towneley	Whig
		1847	Sackville Lane-Fox	Conservative
		1852	Hon. Francis Charles Lawley	Liberal	William Wells	Liberal
		1854	Hon. Arthur Hamilton-Gordon	Liberal
		1857	Edward Auchmuty Glover	Liberal	Hon. William Denison	Liberal
		1857	Henry Edwards	Conservative
		1859			Ralph Walters	Liberal
		1860			James Walker	Conservative
		1865			Christopher Sykes	Conservative
		1868			Edmund Hegan Kennard	Conservative

Writ suspended 1869, constituency abolished 1870

Beverley County Constituency (1950-1955)

Election		Member	Party
	1950	George Odey	Conservative
	1955	constituency abolished

Beverley County Constituency (1983-1997)

Election		Member	Party
	1983	Patrick Wall	Conservative
	1987	James Cran	Conservative
	1997	constituency abolished

Elections

Elections in the 1990s

General Election 1992: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	James Cran	34,503	53.3	+1.1
	Liberal Democrat	Andrew Collinge	17,986	27.8	−3.5
	Labour	Colin Challen	12,026	18.6	+2.1
	Natural Law	D Hetherington	199	0.3	+0.3
Majority			16,517	25.5	+4.6
Turnout			64,714	79.9	+3.6
	Conservative hold		Swing	+2.3

Elections in the 1980s

General Election 1987: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	James Cran	31,459	52.2	-4.1
	Liberal	John Bryant	18,864	31.3	0.0
	Labour	Martin Shaw	9,901	16.4	+3.9
Majority			12,595	20.9	-4.1
Turnout				76.3	+3.1
	Conservative hold		Swing

General Election 1983: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Patrick Wall	31,233	56.3	N/A
	Liberal	M. Pitts	17,364	31.3	N/A
	Labour	Elliot Morley	6,921	12.5	N/A
Majority			13,869	25.0	N/A
Turnout				73.2	N/A
	Conservative hold		Swing

Elections in the 1950s

General Election 1951: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	George Odey	27,937	59.1	+3.4
	Labour	T. Brennan	12,778	27.1	+1.2
	Liberal	Harold Stewart Freemantle	6,522	13.8	-1.3
Majority			15,159	32.1	+2.3
Turnout				80.0	-3.0
	Conservative hold		Swing

General Election 1950: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	George Odey	26,699	55.7	N/A
	Labour	A. Gray	12,399	25.9	N/A
	Liberal	Harold Stewart Freemantle	7,719	16.1	N/A
	Independent Conservative	G. Thorley	1,121	2.3	N/A
Majority			14,300	29.8	N/A
Turnout				83.0	N/A
	Conservative hold		Swing	N/A

Elections in the 1860s

General Election 1868: Beverley

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Henry Edwards	1,132
	Conservative	Edmund Hegan Kennard	986
	Liberal	Marmaduke Maxwell	895
	Liberal	Anthony Trollope	740
Majority
Turnout
	Conservative hold		Swing	N/A

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Humberside

Sources

• F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
• D Brunton & D H Pennington, “Members of the Long Parliament” (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
• Michael Kinnear, "The British Voter" (London: Batsford, 1968)
• H G Nicholas, "To The Hustings" (London: Cassell & Co., 1956)
• J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Robert Waller, "The Almanac of British Politics" (3rd edition, London: Croom Helm, 1987)
• Frederic A Youngs, jr, "Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol II" (London: Royal Historical Society, 1991)
• Victoria County History of the East Riding of Yorkshire
• "Beverley, 1700-1835 - Parliamentary Elections" from the Victoria County History