Bristol (UK Parliament constituency)
| Bristol | |
|---|---|
| Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons |
|
| 1295–1885 | |
| Number of members | two |
Bristol was a two-member constituency, used to elect members to the House of Commons in the Parliaments of England (to 1707), Great Britain (1707–1800) and the United Kingdom (from 1801). The constituency existed until Bristol was divided into single member constituencies in 1885.
The historic port city of Bristol, is located in what is now the South West Region of England. It straddles the border between the historic geographical counties of Gloucestershire and Somerset. It was usually accounted as a Gloucestershire borough in the later part of the 19th and the 20th centuries.
The parliamentary borough of Bristol was represented in Parliament from the 13th century, as one of the most important population centres in the Kingdom. Namier and Brooke comment that in 1754 the city was the second largest in the Kingdom and had the third largest electorate for an urban seat.
From the United Kingdom general election, 1885 the city was divided into four single member seats. These were Bristol East, Bristol North, Bristol South and Bristol West.
The use of Roman numerals in the list below denotes different politicians of the same name, not that the individuals concerned would have used the Roman numerals as part of their name.
Non Partisan denotes that the politician concerned is not known to have been associated with a party (not necessarily that he was not). It should be noted that whilst Whig and Tory societies in the city continued to nominate candidates in the last half of the 18th century, the electoral labels used in Bristol had very little to do with what the MPs did in national politics.
Notes:-
During the existence of this constituency, Bristol was a city with the status of being a county of itself. That meant that the city was not subject to the administration of the officials of the geographic counties in which it was situated. In electoral terms it meant that the voters for the parliamentary borough included those qualified on the same 40 shilling freeholder franchise as that for a county constituency. Other electors qualified as freemen of the borough. These were the ancient right franchises, applicable to Bristol, preserved by the Reform Act 1832, which also introduced a broader occupation franchise for all borough constituencies.
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