Brighton was a

parliamentary constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprem ...

from 1832 until it was divided into single-member seats from the

1950 United Kingdom general election The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first ever to be held after a full term of Labour government. The election was held on Thursday 23 February 1950, and was the first held following the abolition of plural voting and university ...

. Covering the seaside towns of

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

and

Hove Hove is a seaside resort and one of the two main parts of the city of Brighton and Hove, along with Brighton in East Sussex, England. Originally a "small but ancient fishing village" surrounded by open farmland, it grew rapidly in the 19th ...

in East Sussex, it elected two

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) by the block vote system of election.

History

The constituency was created by the

Reform Act 1832 The Representation of the People Act 1832 (also known as the 1832 Reform Act, Great Reform Act or First Reform Act) was an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major changes to the electo ...

for the 1832 general election. The constituency was based on the south coast seaside resort town of

. When it was proposed to enfranchise Brighton a Tory observed in Parliament that it would represent merely "toffy (sic), lemonade and jelly shops".

Charles Seymour Charles Seymour (January 1, 1885 – August 11, 1963) was an American academic, historian and the 15th President of Yale University from 1937 to 1951. As an academic administrator, he was instrumental in establishing Yale's residential colle ...

suggests he "obviously feared the Whig proclivities of the numerous tradespeople established there". The first representatives of the constituency were of radical opinions. Isaac Newton Wigney (MP 1832–1839 and 1841–1842) was described as being of " Whig opinions inclining to radicalism, in favour of the ballot, and pledged himself to resign his seat whenever his constituents called upon him so to do". His colleague, the Nonconformist preacher and attorney George Faithfull (MP 1832–1835), went much further. He advocated "the immediate abolition of slavery, of all unmerited pensions and sinecures, the standing army, all useless expense, the Corn Laws, and every other monopoly. He said that if the extent of suffrage at that time was not found efficient he would vote for universal suffrage: and if triennial Parliaments did not succeed, would vote for having them annually; he was an advocate of the ballot". Seymour provides figures for the voting qualification of Brighton electors, following the Reform Act 1867. The town was one of six boroughs in England where the £10 occupiers, enfranchised in 1832, were much more numerous than the householders who received the vote under the 1867 Act. There were 7,590 £10 occupiers and only 944 householders on the electoral register. Members of Parliament for the constituency, after the first two, were of more conventional views; but most elections were won by the Liberal Party until 1884. In 1884 the Liberal MP, William Marriott, broke with his party as he disagreed with Prime Minister Gladstone's foreign and Egyptian policy. Marriott resigned his seat and was re-elected as a Conservative. From that time onwards the Liberal Party never won an election in the constituency, except for a by-election in 1905 and both seats in the landslide victory of 1906. Apart from those few years of liberal strength, Brighton became a safe Conservative constituency. The 1931 election of Sir Cooper Rawson holds the record for the largest majority ever received at a general election (62,253), as well as the most votes received by an individual (75,205).

Boundaries

The constituency was defined in the

Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 The Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which defined the parliamentary divisions (constituencies) in England and Wales required by the Reform Act 1832. The boundaries were largely those recommen ...

as comprising the "respective Parishes of Brighthelmstone and

". The act named the

parliamentary borough A borough is an administrative division in various English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History In the Middle Ag ...

as "Brighthelmstone", but the name "Brighton" was invariably used. The two parishes were adjacent coastal resorts in the historic county of

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the Englis ...

in South East England. Brighton obtained a charter of incorporation to become a

municipal borough Municipal boroughs were a type of local government district which existed in England and Wales between 1835 and 1974, in Northern Ireland from 1840 to 1973 and in the Republic of Ireland from 1840 to 2002. Broadly similar structures existed in S ...

in 1854, while Hove formed a

local board of health Local boards or local boards of health were local authorities in urban areas of England and Wales from 1848 to 1894. They were formed in response to cholera epidemics and were given powers to control sewers, clean the streets, regulate environmenta ...

in 1858, becoming a borough forty years later. These changes in local government made no changes to the boundaries of the constituency. Under the

Representation of the People Act 1867 The Representation of the People Act 1867, 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102 (known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act) was a piece of British legislation that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the first ...

the constituency was enlarged to include the

Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

area which fell inside Brighton's municipal boundaries. These boundaries were used until the 1918 general election when seats were redefined in terms of the local government areas then in existence. The parliamentary borough was defined as consisting of the County Borough of Brighton and the Municipal Borough of Hove. The constituency was enlarged to include

Aldrington Aldrington is an area of the city of Brighton and Hove, previously part of the old borough of Hove. For centuries it was meadow land along the English Channel stretching west from the old village of Hove to the old mouth of the River Adur, an ...

which lay with Hove's borough boundaries. Under the

Representation of the People Act 1948 The Representation of the People Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting for parliamentary elections, includin ...

the remaining multi-member constituencies were abolished and replaced with single-member ones from the 1950 election. The County Borough of Brighton was divided into

Brighton Kemptown Brighton Kemptown, often referred to as Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven by local political parties, is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Lloyd Russell-Moyle, a Labour Co-op MP. The consti ...

and

Brighton Pavilion The Royal Pavilion, and surrounding gardens, also known as the Brighton Pavilion, is a Grade I listed former royal residence located in Brighton, England. Beginning in 1787, it was built in three stages as a seaside retreat for George, Prin ...

. The Municipal Borough of

, which had also been included in the old Brighton seat was combined with Portslade by Sea Urban District to form the new

constituency.

Members of Parliament

Notes:- * ¹ Marriott resigned his seat as a Liberal MP in February 1884, because of dissatisfaction with the foreign and Egyptian policy of the Liberal government. He was re-elected in March 1884 as a Conservative candidate. * ² Lord Erskine was a

courtesy title A courtesy title is a title that does not have legal significance but rather is used through custom or courtesy, particularly, in the context of nobility, the titles used by children of members of the nobility (cf. substantive title). In some con ...

. He was the heir apparent of The 12th Earl of Mar and 14th Earl of Kellie, but as he died before his father he never inherited the hereditary titles of his family.

Elections

Elections in the 1940s

Elections in the 1930s

Elections in the 1920s

Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1900s

Elections in the 1890s

Elections in the 1880s

* Caused by Marriott's appointment as Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces. * Caused by Marriott's decision to seek re-election as a Conservative.

Elections in the 1870s

Elections in the 1860s

* Caused by Coningham's resignation. * Caused by Pechell's death.

Elections in the 1850s

* Caused by Hervey's appointment as a

Lord Commissioner of the Treasury In the United Kingdom there are at least six Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, serving as a commission for the ancient office of Treasurer of the Exchequer. The board consists of the First Lord of the Treasury, the Second Lord of the ...

Elections in the 1840s

* Caused by Wigney's resignation by accepting the office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds after he was declared bankrupt