Wareham was a
parliamentary borough in Dorset, which elected two Members of Parliament (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. ...
from 1302 until 1832, and then one member from 1832 until 1885, when the borough was abolished.
History
The borough consisted of the town of
Wareham on the
Isle of Purbeck
The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome and Poole Harbour to the no ...
, a market town close to
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley (ria) formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being th ...
. In 1831, the population of the borough was 1,676, and it contained 364 houses.
The right to vote was exercised by the Mayor, magistrates and
freemen of the town and all inhabitants paying
scot and lot
Scot and lot is a phrase common in the records of English, Welsh and Irish medieval boroughs, referring to local rights and obligations.
The term ''scot'' comes from the Old English word ''sceat'', an ordinary coin in Anglo-Saxon times, equivalen ...
; the number who were qualified to vote under this provision by the time of the Reform Act was unknown, as there had not been a contested election for many years, but there were about 500 in the 1760s. In the early 18th century a number of wealthy local families were influential over the choice of members, but eventually
John Calcraft
John Calcraft the Elder (1726 – 23 August 1772), of Rempstone in Dorset and Ingress in Kent, was an English army agent and politician.
Business career
The son of an attorney who was Town Clerk of Grantham, Calcraft set out on a career as an ...
of Kingstone Hall secured total control by buying up all the property in the borough occupied by potential voters.
[Page 125, ]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)
Wareham retained one of its two MPs under the Reform Act, but its boundaries were extended to include several surrounding areas, including nearby
Corfe Castle
Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the P ...
which had previously been a borough in its own right. The new borough had a population of 5,751.
The borough continued to elect one MP until the third Reform Act, which came into effect at the
general election of 1885. This abolished the constituency, Wareham being placed in the new
East Dorset
East Dorset was a local government district in Dorset, England. Its council met in Wimborne Minster between 2016 and 2019.
The district (as Wimborne) was formed on 1 April 1974 by merging Wimborne Minster Urban District with Wimborne and Cran ...
county division.
Members of Parliament
1302–1629
* ''Constituency created'' (1302)
1640–1832
1832–1885
Election results
Elections in the 1830s
Elections in the 1840s
Elections in the 1850s
Elections in the 1860s
Calcraft's death caused a by-election.
Elections in the 1870s
Elections in the 1880s
Notes
References
*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
* F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
* Maija Jansson (ed.), ''Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons)'' (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
* 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)
*
* Concise Dictionary of National Biography (1930)
*{{Rayment-hc, w, 1, date=March 2012
Parliamentary constituencies in Dorset (historic)
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1302
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1885
Wareham, Dorset