New Romney 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 ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, which 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 ...

(MPs) to 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 ...

from 1371 until 1832, when it was abolished by the

Great Reform Act 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 ...

. New Romney was a

Cinque Port The Confederation of Cinque Ports () is a historic group of coastal towns in south-east England – predominantly in Kent and Sussex, with one outlier ( Brightlingsea) in Essex. The name is Old French, meaning "five harbours", and alludes to t ...

, which made it technically of different status from 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 ...

, but the difference was purely a nominal one. The constituency consisted of the town of

New Romney New Romney is a market town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to silt up. New Romney, one of the original Cinque Ports, was once a sea port, ...

; it had once been a flourishing port but by the 19th century the harbour had been destroyed and there was no maritime trade, the main economic activity being grazing cattle on

Romney Marsh Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about . The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until ...

. In 1831, the population of the constituency was 978, and the town contained 165 houses. The right to vote was reserved to the

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...

and Common Council of the town; however, many of these were customs or excise officers, who were disqualified from voting by a change in the law in 1782, so that in the early 19th century there were only 8 voters. The high proportion of voters holding paid government posts before this change in the law meant that New Romney was sometimes considered to be a "treasury borough" (that is, a constituency whose seats were in the gift of the government); but in practice the Dering family, local landowners, were even more influential and could sometimes defy government pressure. The Dering influence in New Romney seems mainly to have been achieved by letting out property to voters and their relatives at easy rents and without leases. In 1761, for example, the despairing Whig MP,

Rose Fuller Rose Fuller FRS (12 April 1708 – 7 May 1777) was a West Indies plantation owner and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1756 to 1777. Early life Fuller was the second son of John Fuller FRS, of Brightling, Sussex, and his wife El ...

, explained to Prime Minister Newcastle that he had no chance of re-election since Dering had turned against him, because ''"several of the governing men are graziers and the Deering and Furnese family have together a very great estate in the neighbouring marsh which is very profitable to and easy for tenants"''.Page 115,

Lewis Namier Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier (; 27 June 1888 – 19 August 1960) was a British historian of Polish-Jewish background. His best-known works were ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' (1929), ''England in the Age of the Ameri ...

, ''

The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III ''The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III'' was a book written by Lewis Namier. At the time of its first publication in 1929 it caused a historiographical revolution in understanding the 18th century by challenging the Whig view ...

'' (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1957) The reduction in the number of voters naturally made this influence easier, or at least cheaper, to exert. New Romney was abolished as a constituency by the Reform Act, the town being incorporated into the new Eastern Kent county division.

Members of Parliament

1371-1640

1640-1832

Notes

References

Robert Beatson Robert Beatson, LL.D. FRSE FSA (1741–1818) was a Scottish compiler and miscellaneous writer. Life He was born on 25 June 1741 at Dysart in Fife, Scotland, the son of David Beatson of Vicarsgrange. He was educated for the military profession, ...

, "A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament" (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807

* D Brunton & D H Pennington, ''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

*

J. E. Neale Sir John Ernest Neale (7 December 1890 in Liverpool – 2 September 1975) was an English historian who specialised in Elizabethan and Parliamentary history. From 1927 to 1956, he was the Astor Professor of English History at University Coll ...

, ''The Elizabethan House of Commons'' (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949) *

T. H. B. Oldfield Thomas Hinton Burley Oldfield (1755–1822) was an English political reformer, parliamentary historian and antiquary. His major work, ''The Representative History'', has been called "a domesday book of corruption". Life He was born in Derbyshire ...

, ''The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland'' (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816) * J Holladay Philbin, ''Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965) *Henry Stooks Smith, ''The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847'' (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig - Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973) * Frederic A Youngs, jr, "Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I" (London:

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...

, 1979) *{{Rayment-hc, n, 2, date=March 2012 Parliamentary constituencies in Kent (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1371 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832 Rotten boroughs Cinque ports parliament constituencies