Western division of Suffolk

West Suffolk
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
County	Suffolk
1832–1885
Number of members	Two
Replaced by	Bury St Edmunds Stowmarket and Sudbury
Created from	Suffolk

The Western Division of Suffolk was a two-member constituency to the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in the 1832 Reform Act and disestablished in 1885.

The seat saw a relatively long first existence under the Reform Act 1832 merely as a more representative division (with a total of four MPs) instead of two for the former entire county at large, which still allowed for double voting (or more) of those Forty Shilling Freeholders who also were householders or landlords of any particular boroughs within the county. This Act retained the four largest boroughs of the seven before 1832.

With two heirs to their title serving the seat were the Marquesses of Bristol, the Hervey family, major landowners in the county and the modern seat, at Ickworth, part of its grand house now being a luxury hotel.

Equally sweeping changes took place at the end of this period with the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 which here saw the establishment of three single-member constituencies covering much of the former half-county by widening the narrow and underpopulated dual-member seat of Bury St Edmunds: the other two seats being named the North-Western or 'Stowmarket' Division and the South or 'Sudbury' Division.

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Wikipedia