East Looe was a
parliamentary borough represented in the
House of Commons of England from 1571 to 1707, in 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 ...
from 1797 to 1800, and finally in the
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England.
The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 me ...
from 1801 until its abolition in 1832. 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 ...
(MP) by the
bloc vote system of election. It was disenfranchised in the
Reform Act 1832.
History
The borough consisted of the town of East
Looe
Looe (; kw, Logh, ) is a coastal town and civil parish in south-east Cornwall, England, with a population of 5,280 at the 2011 census.
Looe is west of Plymouth and south of Liskeard, divided in two by the River Looe, East Looe ( kw, links ...
in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, connected by bridge across the
River Looe
The River Looe ( kw, Logh, meaning ''deep water inlet'') is a river in south-east Cornwall, which flows into the English Channel at Looe. It has two main branches, the East Looe River and the West Looe River. The eastern branch has its source n ...
to
West Looe
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some R ...
, which was also a parliamentary borough. From the reign of
Edward VI
Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour and the first E ...
, East Looe and West Looe were jointly a borough, returning two members of Parliament; however, under
Queen Elizabeth the two towns were separated, and each thereafter returned two members except between 1654 and 1658, when they were once again represented jointly as
East Looe and West Looe, by one member of the
First
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
and
Second Protectorate Parliament
The Second Protectorate Parliament in England sat for two sessions from 17 September 1656 until 4 February 1658, with Thomas Widdrington as the Speaker of the House of Commons. In its first session, the House of Commons was its only chamber; in ...
s.
The right of election was in Mayor and members of the corporation, together with a number of
freemen of the borough. Namier and Brooke estimated that there were about fifty voters in this constituency in the second half of the eighteenth century. It is estimated that by 1800 there were still about fifty electors, and in 1831 the number of eligible voters was 38 while the population of the borough was 865.
In practice, this meant that the power to choose the MPs was in the hands of the local landowner or "proprietor", making East Looe (like West Looe) one of the most notorious of 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 electorate ...
s. The borough was long controlled by the
Trelawny family of the nearby manor of
TrelawnyHistory of Parliament
The History of Parliament is a project to write a complete history of the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors, the Parliament of Great Britain and the Parliament of England. The history will principally consist of a prosopography, in ...
: House of Commons 1715-1754, ed. R. Sedgwick, 197
/ref> in the parish of Pelynt
Pelynt ( kw, Pluwnennys, Pluwnonna) is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is 20 miles (32 km) west of Plymouth and four miles (6.5 km) west-northwest of Looe. Pelynt had a population of around 1,124 ...
. For many years at the time of the Reform Act, East Looe had been controlled by the Buller family of Morval (which also controlled West Looe and Saltash
Saltash (Cornish: Essa) is a town and civil parish in south Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It had a population of 16,184 in 2011 census. Saltash faces the city of Plymouth over the River Tamar and is popularly known as "the Gateway to Corn ...
), and many members of the family sat for the borough in the House of Commons.
After the Reform Act 1832 disenfranchised the borough, it reverted to being represented as part of the county constituency covering its area. Cornwall was divided into two divisions in 1832, East Cornwall (with its place of election at Bodmin) and West Cornwall (which voted at Truro). East Looe was located in East Cornwall.
Members of Parliament
1571-1629
1640-1832
See also
* West Looe (UK Parliament constituency)
West Looe, often spelt Westlow or alternative Westlowe, in Cornwall, England, was a rotten borough represented in the House of Commons of England from 1535 to 1707, in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and in the House o ...
* MPs elected in the British general election, 1754
This is a list of the 558 MPs or members of Parliament elected to the 314 constituencies of the Parliament of Great Britain in 1754, the 11th Parliament of Great Britain.
The candidates returned in contested elections are listed in the desce ...
* Unreformed House of Commons
"Unreformed House of Commons" is a name given to the House of Commons of Great Britain and (after 1800 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom) before it was reformed by the Reform Act 1832, the Irish Reform Act 1832, and the Scottish Reform ...
Notes
References
* Robert Beatson
''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)
* William Cobbett
William Cobbett (9 March 1763 – 18 June 1835) was an English pamphleteer, journalist, politician, and farmer born in Farnham, Surrey. He was one of an agrarian faction seeking to reform Parliament, abolish "rotten boroughs", restrain foreign ...
''Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803''
(London: Thomas Hansard, 1808)
* 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 ...
and John Brooke, ''The House of Commons 1754-1790'' (LOndon: HMSO, 1964)
* 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)
*
*{{Rayment-hc, e, 1, date=March 2012
Parliamentary constituencies in Cornwall (historic)
Rotten boroughs
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1571
Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1832
Looe