Dunwich (UK Parliament constituency)
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Dunwich was a parliamentary borough in
Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...
, one of the most notorious of all the
rotten 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 ...
s. It 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. ...
from 1298 until 1832, when the constituency 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 ...
.


History

In medieval times, when
Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...
was first accorded representation in Parliament, it was a flourishing port and market town about from
Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
. However, by 1670 the sea had encroached upon the town, destroying the port and swallowing up all but a few houses so that nothing was left but a tiny village. The borough had once consisted of eight parishes, but all that was left was part of the parish of All Saints,
Dunwich Dunwich is a village and civil parish in Suffolk, England. It is in the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB around north-east of London, south of Southwold and north of Leiston, on the North Sea coast. In the Anglo-Saxon period, Dunwich was t ...
- which by 1831 had a population of 232, and only 44 houses ("and half a church", as Oldfield recorded in 1816). In fact, this made Dunwich by no means the smallest of England's rotten boroughs, but the symbolism of two Members of Parliament representing a constituency that was essentially underwater captured the imagination and made Dunwich one of the most frequently-mentioned examples of the absurdities of the unreformed system. The right to vote was exercised by the freemen of the borough. Originally, these freemen could vote even if they did not live in the borough, and at times this was abused as elsewhere, notably in 1670 when 500 non-resident freemen were created to swamp the resident voters. From 1709, however, by a resolution of the House of Commons, the franchise was restricted to resident freemen who were not receiving alms. By the 19th century, the maximum number of freemen had been set at 32, of whom the two "patrons", Lord Huntingfield and Snowdon Barne, could nominate eight each, so that between them they controlled half of the votes and needed only one other voter to gain control of elections. Earlier, in the 1760s, Sir Jacob Downing had been the sole patron, but in theory he also was considered to have only influence, rather than the absolute power to dictate the choice of the Members. Unsurprisingly, in 1754 Downing was able to occupy one seat himself and sell the choice of the other member to the
Duke of Newcastle Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne was a title that was created three times, once in the Peerage of England and twice in the Peerage of Great Britain. The first grant of the title was made in 1665 to William Cavendish, 1st Marquess of Newcastle u ...
(then Prime Minister) for £1,000; it is not recorded whether he needed to share some of this largesse with his co-operative voters. Dunwich was abolished as a constituency in 1832, when what remained of the village became part of the new Eastern Suffolk county division.


Members of Parliament


Before 1660


1660-1832


In popular culture

Dunwich is satirised in an episode of the British television show ''
Blackadder the Third ''Blackadder the Third'' is the third series of the BBC sitcom ''Blackadder'', written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 17 September to 22 October 1987. The series is set during the Georgian Era, and sees the principal character ...
'' titled "
Dish and Dishonesty ''Blackadder the Third'' is the third series of the BBC sitcom '' Blackadder'', written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 17 September to 22 October 1987. The series is set during the Georgian Era, and sees the principal chara ...
". Named Dunny-on-the-Wold, and like Dunwich, described as being located in Suffolk, it has a population of three cows, a dachshund called "Colin", and "a small hen in its late forties"; only one person lives there and he is the voter. After an obviously rigged election (in which it is revealed that
Blackadder ''Blackadder'' is a series of four period British sitcoms, plus several one-off instalments, which originally aired on BBC One from 1983 to 1989. All television episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as the antihero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robins ...
is both the constituency's returning officer and voter, after both his predecessors had died in highly suspicious "accidents"),
Baldrick Baldrick is the name of several fictional characters featured in the long-running BBC historic comedy television series ''Blackadder''. Each one serves as Edmund Blackadder's servant and sidekick and acts as a foil to the lead character. Each ...
is made an MP having received all 16,472 of the votes cast.


References

* T. H. B. Oldfield, ''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) * Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, ''The Unreformed House of Commons'' (Cambridge University Press, 1903) * * Evelyn Wright, ''Forgotten families of Suffolk'' (The Book Castle, Dunstable, 2008)


Notes

{{reflist Parliamentary constituencies in Suffolk (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1298 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832 Rotten boroughs Dunwich