County Durham (UK Parliament constituency)

Durham or County Durham was a county constituency in northern England, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1675 until 1832.

For the constituency based on Durham City, sometimes simply referred to as "Durham" and from 1950–1983 officially called "Durham County Constituency", see City of Durham (UK Parliament constituency).

Durham
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
County	Durham
1675–1832
Number of members	Two
Replaced by	Gateshead, North Durham, South Durham and South Shields

History

The constituency consisted of the whole county of Durham (including the enclaves of Norhamshire, Islandshire and Bedlington, all situated within the boundaries of Northumberland and now part of that county, and of Crayke, now in North Yorkshire).

Because of its semi-autonomous status as a county palatine, Durham had not been represented in Parliament during the medieval period; by the 17th century it was the only part of England which elected no MPs. In 1621, Parliament passed a bill to enfranchise the county, but James I refused it the royal assent, as he considered that the House of Commons already had too many members and that some decayed boroughs should be abolished first; a similar bill in 1624 failed to pass the House of Lords. During the Commonwealth, County Durham was allowed to send members to the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate, though the privilege was not maintained when Parliament reverted to its earlier electoral arrangements from 1658. After the Restoration, Durham's right to return MPs was recognised in 1661, and finally confirmed by statute which came into effect in 1675; the county was to return two members, and the same Act also established Durham City as a parliamentary borough with its own two members.

As in other county constituencies the franchise between 1430 and 1832 was defined by the Forty Shilling Freeholder Act, which gave the right to vote to every man who possessed freehold property within the county valued at £2 or more per year for the purposes of land tax; it was not necessary for the freeholder to occupy his land, nor even in later years to be resident in the county at all.

By the time of the Reform Act, the county had a population of just over 250,000, although this was slightly reduced by the boundary changes which severed the enclaves and made them part of Northumberland or the North Riding of Yorkshire for parliamentary purposes. The electorate was only a fraction of this number: at the general election of 1790, 5,578 voted, and in 1820 the number was only 3,741. Although nobody could exert the degree of control over the voters that was common in many boroughs, several of the major local landowners had significant influence, in particular the Vane Earls of Darlington.

In 1832 the county's representation was doubled, and the constituency divided into two new two-member constituencies, North Durham and South Durham.

Members of Parliament

Election		First member	First party		Second member	Second party
1654		George Lilburne			Robert Lilburne
1656		Thomas Lilburne			James Clavering, Bt
June 1675		John Tempest			Thomas Vane
October 1675					Christopher Vane
February 1679					Sir Robert Eden, Bt
August 1679		William Bowes			Thomas Fetherstonhalgh
1685		Robert Byerley			William Lambton	Tory
1690		Sir Robert Eden, Bt	Tory
1695		Sir William Bowes
1698		Sir Robert Eden, Bt			Lionel Vane
1701		William Lambton	Tory
1702		Sir Robert Eden, Bt	Tory		Sir William Bowes	Doubtful
1707					John Tempest	Tory
1708					William Vane, of West Auckland
1710					William Lambton
1713		Sir John Eden	Tory		John Hedworth[1]	Independent Whig
1727		George Bowes
1747					Hon. Henry Vane	Whig
1753 by-election					Hon. Henry Vane[2]	Whig
1758 by-election					Captain the Hon. Raby Vane
1760 by-election		Robert Shafto
1761					Hon. Frederick Vane
1768		Sir Thomas Clavering, Bt	Whig
1774					Sir John Eden, Bt	Whig
1790		Rowland Burdon	Tory		Captain Ralph Milbanke[3]	Whig
1806		Sir Thomas Liddell, Bt	Tory
1807		Sir Henry Vane-Tempest, Bt	Tory
1812					Viscount Barnard	Whig
1813 by-election		John George Lambton	Radical
1815 by-election					Hon. William Powlett	Whig
1828 by-election		William Russell	Whig
1831					Sir Hedworth Williamson, Bt	Whig
1832	Constituency divided. See North Durham and South Durham

Notes

1. Hedworth died before the end of the Parliament but a dissolution was called before a writ for a by-election had been issued
2. Styled Viscount Barnard from 1754
3. Sir Ralph Milbanke from 1793

Election results

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References

• Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807)
• T. H. B. Oldfield The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 4)