Orford was a

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 (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

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. ...

. Consisting of the town of Orford in Suffolk, it elected two Members of Parliament (MP) by the block vote version of the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

system of election until it was

disenfranchise Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...

d in 1832.

History

Orford was first represented in the

Parliament of England The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised t ...

in 1298, but did not regularly send members until 1529. The right of election was vested in the Mayor, eight portmen, twelve "capital

burgess __NOTOC__ Burgess may refer to: People and fictional characters * Burgess (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * Burgess (given name), a list of people Places * Burgess, Michigan, an unincorporated community * Burgess, Missouri, U ...

es" and the freemen of the borough. In the early days of its representation, Orford had been a prosperous port and its freemen were numerous, but by the 18th century the number of freemen was deliberately kept low to facilitate controlling the elections, and the town had become a

pocket borough A rotten or pocket borough, also known as a nomination borough or proprietorial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, or the United Kingdom before the Reform Act 1832, which had a very small electorat ...

where most of the qualified voters consisted of the owner's family and retainers. At one time Orford was owned by

Viscount Hereford Viscount Hereford is the oldest and only extant viscountcy in the Peerage of England, making the holder the Premier Viscount of England. The title was created in 1550 for Walter Devereux, 10th Baron Ferrers of Chartley. History The Devereux ...

, but after his death in 1748 it was bought by the government, and by 1760, Orford was perhaps the most secure of all the "Treasury boroughs" – in other words boroughs where the influence of the Crown was so strong that the government could be sure of securing the election of whichever candidates they chose. As such, it was studied in detail by the historian

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 ...

in his book Structure and Politics. To secure government control, the treasury started packing the corporation with outsiders: Namier quotes a letter from

John Roberts John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist who has served as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including ''Nati ...

(who was managing the borough for the government) to Prime Minister Newcastle, urging an immediate decision on who should be nominated to a vacancy as capital burgess because otherwise "we shall be reduced to the necessity of chusing a townsman, the number of which it would be better not to encrease". Maintaining government control of the borough also involved considerable expenditure – £200 a year for rent of houses, and a further £100 for other expenses such as repairs and taxes, all met out of the secret service fund.Page 392,

, ''

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) However, much of Viscount Hereford's estate had been bought by the Earl of Hertford, and he together with his brother

Henry Seymour Conway Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (1721 – 9 July 1795) was a British general and statesman. A brother of the 1st Marquess of Hertford, and cousin of Horace Walpole, he began his military career in the War of the Austrian Succession. He ...

, an influential minister, put pressure on successive Prime Ministers for the control of the borough to be given to him. Eventually in 1766, with the formation of Chatham's ministry, this pressure bore fruit, and Orford was transferred to the Earl of Hertford as partial compensation for his having been supplanted as

Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (), or more formally Lieutenant General and General Governor of Ireland, was the title of the chief governor of Ireland from the Williamite Wars of 1690 until the Partition of Ireland in 1922. This spanned the Kingdo ...

. From this point it remained under the control of Hertford and his heirs until it lost its representation 66 years later, and all its MPs were either members of the Seymour-Conway family or their friends. By the time of 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 ...

in 1832, the population of the borough was only 1,302, in 246 houses, with about 22 men entitled to vote, and this was too small to justify its existence being retained.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1529–1660

MPs 1660–1832

Notes

References

*J Holladay Philbin, "Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales" (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965) *{{rayment-hc, o, date=March 2012 Parliamentary constituencies in Suffolk (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1529 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832 Rotten boroughs Orford, Suffolk