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Browse articles on the constituencies which elected MPs to the House of Commons during the periods covered by the History of Parliament. Most constituencies are included under several different sections.

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Browse short accounts of the Parliaments which met from 1509 to 1868. Later Parliaments normally met for more than one session or year.

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Browse the text of the introductory surveys to the published History of Parliament sections (except 1509-58). Each of the surveys presents analysis of the House of Commons.

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Follow these links to browse biographies of Members, articles on constituencies, accounts of each Parliament and chapters from the introductory surveys. You will then be able to research within the set date ranges of the published History of Parliament series. To find a specific article, use the Search box at the top of the page.

All Featured Members

CAVENDISH, John (1732-96)

Cavendish, a founder member of the Whig Club, was not expected to return to public affairs after his disgust at being defeated in 1784. He might have stood for York again and he had no objection to his name being used; on 18 Nov. 1787, however, he informed his friend Earl Fitzwilliam, ‘If I can I...

JENKINSON, Hon. Robert Banks (1770-1828)

Jenkinson ‘seemed born to be a statesman’: he was carefully educated for the role by his father, who aspired to it himself and who as Pitt’s president of the Board of Trade readily assumed that character, which seemed to be confirmed by his admission to the cabinet in 1791. At Oxford...

WELLESLEY, Sir Arthur (1769-1852)

An impecunious younger son, Wellesley, described while at Eton as ‘not at all a book boy, and rather dull’, was destined for a military career, in which he progressed under the aegis of his eldest brother Lord Mornington. On coming of age, and while aide-de-camp to the lord lieutenant, he was...

Featured Constituencies

Wallingford

Wallingford was a venal and expensive borough. In 1792 Oldfield wrote bluntly that ‘the highest bidder is always chosen ... Corruption is brought there to such a system that a legal discovery is not likely to be made, unless by a difference among the interested parties.’ The historian of the...

London

The ‘great beehive of Christendom’, London in the early seventeenth century was the largest city in England, home to more than 200,000 souls. Its population growth, more rapid than that of the rest of the country, was not halted even by severe plague outbreaks like that of 1603, which claimed...

Newcastle-upon-Tyne

Recognizing the importance of Newcastle-upon-Tyne as both a port and a defensive site, the Normans lost no time in fortifying the township, just as the Romans had done before them. A flourishing community grew up around the castle, and shortly before 1135 the first of many royal charters was...

Featured Parliaments

1656

Of the three parliaments of the Cromwellian Protectorate, the second is arguably the most dramatic. This parliament was dominated by the need to provide money for the state to maintain a large army and navy to fight an expensive war against Spain; and the need to legitimise a government founded...

1426

Parliament met in an atmosphere of great tension and serious danger of open violence. Even though the lords’ retainers were told not to carry weapons (‘every man was warnyd and i cryde throughe the towne that they shulde leve hyr wepyn yn hyr ynnys that ys to saye hyr swerdys and bokelers,...

Featured Surveys

The Sale of Seats

This practice continued, probably more extensively than the patchy evidence suggests. A few patrons are known to have sold seats as a matter of course: Northumberland (Launceston); Lord St. Germans (St. Germans) and Sir Mark Wood (Gatton). Doubtless there were others. The cost of known transactions...

I. England

Between 1820 and 1826 the House of Commons had 658 Members, elected by 383 constituencies: 245 English; 24 Welsh; 48 Scottish (with three pairs of counties returning to alternate Parliaments); and 66 Irish. The disfranchisement of Grampound for corruption and the transfer of its two seats to...