Bewdley (UK Parliament constituency)

Worcestershire, Bewdley
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
1885–1950
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Kidderminster and South Worcestershire

Bewdley
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1605–1885
Number of members	One

Bewdley was the name of a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1605 until 1950. Until 1885 it was a parliamentary borough in Worcestershire, represented by one Member of Parliament; the name was then transferred to a county constituency from 1885 until 1950. Its MPs included the former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, who represented the seat from 1908 to 1937, and afterwards took the name of the constituency as part of his title when he was raised to the peerage.

1885-1918: The Municipal Boroughs of Bewdley and Worcester, the Sessional Divisions of Hundred House, Tenbury, and Worcester, and part of the Sessional Divisions of Malvern and Stourport.

1918-1950: The Municipal Borough of Bewdley, the Urban Districts of Malvern and Stourport, the Rural Districts of Hartley, Rock, Tenbury, and Upton-on-Severn, the Rural District which consisted of the civil parishes of Redmarley D'Abitot and Staunton, and in the Rural District of Tewkesbury the civil parishes of Chaceley and Pendock.

Bewdley was enfranchised in 1605, being one of only a handful of English boroughs electing one rather than two MPs. The borough consisted of part of Ribbesford parish in Worcestershire, of which the market town of Bewdley was the main settlement. In 1831, the population of the borough was 3,908, and contained 891 houses.

The right to vote was exercised by the bailiff and burgesses (members of the town corporation, who need not necessarily be resident in the borough); this normally amounted to only 13 voters, though the report to Parliament before the Reform Act recorded the electorate as 42. (The discrepancy is perhaps academic, since it was many years since there had been a contested election.)

In the second half of the 17th century, the inhabitants at large made several attempts to secure the right to vote by petitioning against the election results, but in each case the Commons upheld the restrictive provisions of the original grant. The corporation were entitled to nominate their own successors, meaning in theory that their power was self-sustaining. However, in the early 18th century this was circumvented by issuing a new Royal charter for the borough that extinguished the existing corporation and appointed a new one. In 1708 the Whig government had a new charter issued to eject the existing Tory-dominated corporation, and at that year's election both the old and new corporations attempted to exercise their right to vote; the Whig majority in the Commons upheld the new charter and seated the Whig candidate. After the 1710 election, however, the Whig government had lost its Commons majority and the new House declared the charter of 1708 void and the Tory candidate victorious. However, the repeal of the charter could only be secured through recourse to the courts, and although an action was begun it appears that the various parties made up their political differences before it reached a conclusion, and all sides eventually acquiesced in the new corporation's legitimacy.

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