First Protectorate Parliament

The First Protectorate Parliament was summoned by the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell under the terms of the Instrument of Government. It sat for one term from 3 September 1654 until 22 January 1655 with William Lenthall as the Speaker of the House.

During the first nine months of The Protectorate Cromwell, with the aid of the Council of State, had drawn up a list of 84 bills to present to Parliament for ratification. But the members of Parliament had their own and their constituents' interests to promote and in the end not enough of them would agree to work with Cromwell, or to sign a declaration of their acceptance of the Instrument of Government, to make the constitutional arrangements in the Instrument of Government work. Cromwell dissolved the Parliament as soon as it was allowed under the terms of the Instrument of Government, having failed to get any of the 84 bills passed.

The Instrument of Government specified the numbers of MPs that England and Wales sent to the Parliament (400).

By omission from the list rotten boroughs were abolished. A few boroughs not previously enfranchised, notably Leeds and Manchester, received a seat.

All the traditional counties were represented (Durham for the first time). In addition some well established sub-divisions of counties were given separate representation.

There were substantial changes in the number of seats many constituencies received, particularly amongst the counties.

This was the first systematic redistribution of Parliamentary seats in English history and would not be matched for a Royal Parliament until the Reform Act 1832.

In the list below the name of the constituency (as specified in Section X of the Instrument of Government, with minor spelling changes) is followed by the number of seats allocated. The Boroughs in each county follow the county constituency (indicated by boldface and an * after the constituency name). Those areas marked ** were divisions of a traditional county.

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