HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

In the first Parliament to be held after the
Union of Great Britain and Ireland The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a single 'Act of Union 1801') were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ire ...
on 1 January 1801, the first
House of Commons of the United Kingdom The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 me ...
was composed of all 558 members of the former
Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...
and 100 of the members of the
House of Commons of Ireland The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a highly restrictive fra ...
. The
Parliament of Great Britain The Parliament of Great Britain was formed in May 1707 following the ratification of the Acts of Union by both the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland. The Acts ratified the treaty of Union which created a new unified Kingdo ...
had held its last general election in 1796 and last met on 5 November 1800. The final general election for the
Parliament of Ireland The Parliament of Ireland ( ga, Parlaimint na hÉireann) was the legislature of the Lordship of Ireland, and later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1297 until 1800. It was modelled on the Parliament of England and from 1537 comprised two chamb ...
had taken place in 1797, although by-elections had continued to take place until 1800. The other chamber of the Parliament, the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
, consisted of members of the pre-existing House of Lords in Great Britain, in addition to 28 representative peers elected by members of the former
Irish House of Lords The Irish House of Lords was the upper house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from medieval times until 1800. It was also the final court of appeal of the Kingdom of Ireland. It was modelled on the House of Lords of England, with membe ...
. By a proclamation dated 5 November 1800, the members of the new united Parliament were summoned to a first meeting at Westminster on 22 January 1801. At the outset, the Tories led by Addington enjoyed a majority of 108 in the new House of Commons.


Political situation

File:Two pair of portraits - James Gillray.jpg, ''"Two Pair of Portraits;" – presented to all the unbiassed Electors of Great Britain'', an anti-Whig caricature published in 1798 by
James Gillray James Gillray (13 August 1756Gillray, James and Draper Hill (1966). ''Fashionable contrasts''. Phaidon. p. 8.Baptism register for Fetter Lane (Moravian) confirms birth as 13 August 1756, baptism 17 August 1756 1June 1815) was a British caricatur ...
showing Fox as the personification of vice next to a portrait of Pitt as the embodiment of honesty, followed by portraits of their fathers, Lord Holland and Lord Chatham displayed below. The title is an allusion to a pamphlet by
John Horne Tooke John Horne Tooke (25 June 1736 – 18 March 1812), known as John Horne until 1782 when he added the surname of his friend William Tooke to his own, was an English clergyman, politician, and philologist. Associated with radical proponents of parl ...
. File:Integrity-retiring-from-Office-Gillray.jpeg, In ''Integrity retiring from Office!'' (1801),
James Gillray James Gillray (13 August 1756Gillray, James and Draper Hill (1966). ''Fashionable contrasts''. Phaidon. p. 8.Baptism register for Fetter Lane (Moravian) confirms birth as 13 August 1756, baptism 17 August 1756 1June 1815) was a British caricatur ...
caricatured the resignation of Pitt's ministry in 1801.
Great Britain had been at war with France since 1792. The Prime Minister since 1783,
William Pitt the Younger William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...
, led a broad wartime coalition of Whig and
Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
politicians. The principal opposition to Pitt was a relatively weak faction of Whigs, led by
Charles James Fox Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806), styled ''The Honourable'' from 1762, was a prominent British Whig statesman whose parliamentary career spanned 38 years of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. He was the arch-riv ...
. For four years after 1797 opposition attendance at Westminster had been sporadic as Fox pursued a strategy of secession from Parliament. Only a small group, led by
George Tierney George Tierney PC (20 March 1761 – 25 January 1830) was an Irish Whig politician. For much of his career he was in opposition to the governments of William Pitt and Lord Liverpool. From 1818 to 1821 he was Leader of the Opposition in the ...
, had attended frequently to oppose the ministers. As Foord observes "only once did the minority reach seventy-five, and it was often less than ten". The
Act of Union 1800 The Acts of Union 1800 (sometimes incorrectly referred to as a single 'Act of Union 1801') were parallel acts of the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of Ireland which united the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Irela ...
created the United Kingdom by merging the previous Kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The first Parliament of the United Kingdom was composed of all the members of the last Parliament of Great Britain and some of the members of the final Parliament of Ireland. Pitt wished to grant
Catholic emancipation Catholic emancipation or Catholic relief was a process in the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland, and later the combined United Kingdom in the late 18th century and early 19th century, that involved reducing and removing many of the restricti ...
(the right for Roman Catholics to sit in Parliament), to help reconcile the Irish Catholic majority with the Union. King
George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...
was opposed to that policy, so Pitt was compelled to resign in March 1801. The new
Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...
Prime Minister was Henry Addington. He led another wartime administration of pro-government Whigs and Tories, collectively referred to as the "Addingtonians". This was however weaker than Pitt's ministry as Pitt and his faction did not join the new government. The younger opposition Whigs also became more involved in parliamentary opposition. Charles Grey, on 25 March 1801, tried to persuade the House of Commons to set up a Committee on the State of the Nation. His motion was lost, but it attracted 105 supporters. The
Foxite Foxite was a late 18th-century British political label for Whig followers of Charles James Fox. Fox was the generally acknowledged leader of a faction of the Whigs from 1784 to his death in 1806. The group had developed from successive earlier ...
leaders gradually ended their secession from Parliament. Pitt was generally supportive of the Addington ministry, but was semi-detached from it. As the well-known couplet tellingly observed: "Pitt is to Addington, as London is to Paddington", which indicates the contemporary view of the relative abilities of the two prime ministers.


Dates of co-option

All
British MP In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Electoral system All 650 members of the UK House of Commons are elected using the first-past- ...
s and those Irish members representing constituencies which retained two members after the Union (the 32 Irish counties and the cities of
Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...
and
Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...
) automatically retained their seats when the Union took effect on 1 January 1801. Those members of the Irish House of Commons to sit at Westminster, who represented constituencies still enfranchised after the Union but reduced from two members to one (the remaining 31 most considerable Irish boroughs and
Dublin University The University of Dublin ( ga, Ollscoil Átha Cliath), corporately designated the Chancellor, Doctors and Masters of the University of Dublin, is a university located in Dublin, Ireland. It is the degree-awarding body for Trinity College Dubl ...
), were selected by drawing lots. If one of the seats in the Irish Parliament was vacant, then the remaining member for the constituency was automatically chosen for the Westminster Parliament. If both seats were vacant a by-election was held.


Summary of the constituencies

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...
(1 County constituency with 2 MPs and one single member Borough constituency) is included in Wales in these tables. Sources for this period may include the county in England. Table 1: Constituencies and MPs, by type and country Table 2: Number of seats per constituency, by type and country


See also

*
List of parliaments of the United Kingdom This is a list of parliaments of the United Kingdom, tabulated with the elections to the House of Commons and the list of members of the House. The parliaments are numbered from the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. ...
*
Members of the 1st UK Parliament from Ireland Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...


Notes


References

* ''British Electoral Facts 1832–1999'', compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000). ''Source: Dates of Elections – Footnote to Table 5.02'' * ''British Historical Facts 1760–1830'', by Chris Cook and John Stevenson (The Macmillan Press 1980). ''Source: Types of constituencies – Great Britain'' * ''His Majesty's Opposition 1714–1830'', by Archibald S. Foord (Oxford University Press 1964) * ''Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland 1801–1922'', edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978). ''Source: Types of constituencies – Ireland''
''Britain, Parliamentary Papers on the Post Office, Sessions 1800 – 1809,''
by Penn State University {{British elections 1801 establishments in the United Kingdom 1802 disestablishments in the United Kingdom 1802 in the United Kingdom Parliament of the United Kingdom