New Shoreham, sometimes simply called Shoreham, was a

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 ...

centred on the town of

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in West Sussex, England. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to its west by the Adur Valley and to its south by the River Adur and Shoreham Beach on the ...

in what is now

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ar ...

. It returned 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 ...

(MPs) to the

House of Commons of England The House of Commons of England was the lower house of the Parliament of England (which incorporated Wales) from its development in the 14th century to the union of England and Scotland in 1707, when it was replaced by the House of Commons of ...

from 1295 to 1707, then to the

House of Commons of Great Britain The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of th ...

until 1800, and finally to the House of Commons 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 suprema ...

from 1801 until it was abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, with effect from the 1885 general election. A modern constituency called Shoreham existed from 1974 to 1997.

Boundaries, franchise and boundary changes

New Shoreham is a part of Shoreham-by-Sea, located around its port. The borough, in 1800, had about 1,000 electors. The qualification for the vote before 1832, unusually for a borough, was the possession of a 40 shilling freehold which was the normal franchise for a county constituency. The explanation for the franchise qualification was the result of a disputed by-election in 1770. At that time all the electors qualified by paying scot and lot, a local property tax. Stooks Smith provides two notes on what happened, following a result in which Thomas Rumbold received 87 votes and

John Purling John Purling (c. 1722–1800) was an East India Company commander and director and a politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1770 and 1790. Purling's parentage is unknown but he may been a native of St Helena. Mr or Captain John Purl ...

had 37 votes (a third candidate, William James, received 4 votes).

The Returning Officer on the ground that nearly all the 87 were bribed declared Mr. Purling elected, but Mr. Rumbold was seated on petition. On the 14th Feb. 1771, Mr. Roberts the Returning Officer was brought to the Bar of the House, and on his knees received a very severe reprimand from the Speaker for having taken upon himself to return Mr. Purling.

However, as a result of Mr. Robert's action there had been an investigation. The rapes were traditional subdivisions of Sussex. The six rapes each consisted of a strip of territory from the northern border of the county to its southern coast, so the area involved was considerably larger than that of the normal

. As a result of the extension of the boundaries the constituency became more like a county one than a typical borough of the era. When an electoral register was first compiled, before the 1832 election, the 1,925 electors included 701 freeholders and 189 scot and lot voters. The remaining electors would have qualified under the occupation franchise introduced for all boroughs 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, Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom (indexed as 2 & 3 Will. IV c. 45) that introduced major chan ...

, which also preserved the ancient right franchises of the existing electors. The twentieth century parliamentary historian Lewis Namier said that "New Shoreham was the first borough to be disenfranchised for corruption".Page 129, Lewis Namier, '' The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1957)

Members of Parliament

1295–1640

1640–1885

Election results

Elections in the 1830s

Elections in the 1840s

Goring's death caused a by-election.

Elections in the 1850s

Elections in the 1860s

Burrell's death caused a by-election. Cave was appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade, requiring a by-election.

Elections in the 1870s

Cave was appointed Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces and Paymaster General, requiring a by-election. Burrell's death caused a by-election.

Elections in the 1880s

Notes and references

Sources

''Victoria History of the County of Sussex''
– south part of the Rape of Bramber * ''Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885–1972'', compiled and edited by

F. W. S. Craig Frederick Walter Scott Craig (10 December 1929 – 23 March 1989) was a Scottish psephologist and compiler of the standard reference books covering United Kingdom Parliamentary election results. He originally worked in public relations, compilin ...

(Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972) * ''British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885'', compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (The Macmillan Press 1977) * ''The Parliaments of England'' by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844–50), second edition edited (in one volume) by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973) ''out of copyright'' * ''Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume I 1832–1885'', edited by M. Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976) *D. Brunton &

D. H. Pennington Donald Henshaw Pennington (15 June 1919 – 28 December 2007) was a historian of 17th-century England. He taught at Manchester and Oxford universities, becoming a tutor at Balliol College, Oxford in 1965. Donald was born in Marple, Greater Manche ...

, ''Members of the Long Parliament'' (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
''Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803''
(London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) * Maija Jansson (ed.
''Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons)''
(Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988) * J E Neale, ''The Elizabethan House of Commons'' (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949) * {{coord missing, West Sussex Parliamentary constituencies in West Sussex (historic) Adur District Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1295 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1885