Everything about Newport Isle Of Wight Uk Parliament Constituency totally explained
» For other UK Parliament constituencies of the same name see Newport (UK Parliament constituency).
Newport is a former
parliamentary borough located in
Newport (Isle of Wight), abolished in
1885. It was occasionally referred to by the alternative name of
Medina. (Prior to the
Great Reform Act of 1832 there was also a separate
Newport parliamentary borough in
Cornwall.)
History
The borough was first represented in the parliament of 1295, and returned two Members of Parliament from 1584 to 1868. In 1868 its representation was reduced to a single seat, and the constituency was abolished altogether in 1885. Newport's re-enfranchisement in 1584, like that of the other Isle of Wight boroughs (
Newtown and
Yarmouth) seems to have been at the urging of the new Governor of the island,
Sir George Carey, a relative of
the Queen. In token of thanks, the borough granted him for life the right to nominate one of the two MPs - which seems to have been the reward he expected and the motive for his petition to the Queen in the first place.
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.
Before the
Great Reform Act of
1832, the right to vote was vested in the Mayor and Corporation (consisting of 11 aldermen and 12 burgesses). For much of the previous century the borough was "managed" for the government by the Holmes family, meaning that ministers could generally secure the election of their favoured candidates, but often only at the expense of considerable "gratuities" to the voters - in 1754, this apparently amounted to a payment of £600 for each candidate. The borough consisted of the parish of Newport and of Castle Hold in the parish of St Nicholas, thereby excluding that part of the town which extended over the boundary into
Carisbrooke parish; this gave the borough a population of 4,398 in 1831. The 1832 reforms extended the borough to take in the rest of the town, raising the population to 6,700, though the electorate was still only 421.
Newport's representation was reduced from two members to one by the second Reform Act for the
1868 general election, and abolished altogether in
1885, leaving the town represented as part of the
Isle of Wight county constituency.
Members of Parliament
1584-1660
Long Parliament
1640-1642: The Viscount Falkland (Royalist) - disabled to sit, September 1642
1640-1648: Henry Worsley (Parliamentarian) - excluded in Pride's Purge, December 1648
1645(?)-1653: William Stephens
Newport was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
Third Protectorate Parliament
1659: ?
Long Parliament (restored)
1659-1660: ? 1660-1885
Notes
Further Information
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