Dorset was a county constituency covering Dorset in southern England, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs), traditionally known as knights of the shire, to the House of Commons of England from 1290 until 1707, to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom until 1832.
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The Great Reform Act increased its representation to three MPs with effect from the 1832 general election, and under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 the constituency was abolished for the 1885 election, and replaced by four single-member divisions: North Dorset, South Dorset, East Dorset and West Dorset.
When elections were contested, the bloc vote system was used, but contests were rare. Even after the 1832 Reforms, only three of the nineteen elections before 1885 were contested; in the others, the nominated candidates were returned without a vote.[1]
Before 1640
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MPs 1640–1832
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Year | | First member | First party | | Second member | Second party |
April 1640 |
|
Lord Digby | Royalist |
|
Richard Rogers | Royalist |
November 1640 |
1641 |
|
John Browne | Parliamentarian |
September 1642 |
Rogers disabled from sitting - seat vacant |
1645 |
|
Sir Thomas Trenchard | |
December 1648 |
Trenchard did not sit after Pride's Purge - seat vacant |
1653 |
|
William Sydenham | |
|
John Bingham | |
Dorset had six seats in the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate |
1654 |
William Sydenham, John Bingham, Sir Walter Earle, John Fitzjames, John Trenchard, Henry Henley |
1656 |
William Sydenham, John Bingham, Robert Coker, John Fitzjames, John Trenchard, James Dewey |
Dorset reverted to two seats in the Third Protectorate Parliament |
January 1659 |
|
Sir Walter Earle | |
|
John Bingham | |
May 1659 |
Not represented in the restored Rump |
April 1660 | |
John Fitzjames | |
|
Robert Coker | |
Apr 1661 | |
John Strode | |
|
Giles Strangways | |
1675 | |
Lord Digby | |
1677 | |
Thomas Browne | |
1679 | |
Thomas Strangways I | |
|
Thomas Freke | |
1701 | |
Thomas Trenchard | |
1702 | |
Thomas Chafin | |
1711 | |
Richard Bingham | |
1713 | |
George Chafin | |
|
Thomas Strangways II | |
Jan 1727 | |
George Pitt | |
Sep 1727 | |
Edmund Morton Pleydell | |
1747 | |
George Pitt | Tory later Independent |
1754 | |
Humphrey Sturt | |
1774 | |
Hon. George Pitt | |
1784 | |
Francis John Browne | |
1790 | |
William Morton Pitt | Tory[6] |
1806 | |
Edward Berkeley Portman I | Whig[6] |
1823 | |
Edward Portman II | Whig[6] |
1826 | |
Henry Bankes | Tory[6] |
May. 1831 | |
John Calcraft | Whig[6] |
Sep. 1831 | |
Lord Ashley | Tory[6] |
1832 | Representation increased to 3 members |
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MPs 1832–1885
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Elections in the 1830s
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Calcraft's death caused a by-election.
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Elections in the 1840s
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Ashley-Cooper and Sturt both resigned by accepting the office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds causing a by-election.
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Elections in the 1850s
Bankes was appointed Judge Advocate General of the Armed Forces, requiring a by-election.
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Bankes' death caused a by-election.
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Elections in the 1860s
Seymer resigned, causing a by-election.
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Elections in the 1870s
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Sturt was elevated to the peerage, becoming Lord Alington.
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Elections in the 1880s
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Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 376–377. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.
Farrell, Stephen. "Dorset". The History of Parliament. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
- D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
- Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808)
- F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
- Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988)
- J E Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949)
- J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
- Heywood Townshend, Historical Collections:: or, An exact Account of the Proceedings of the Four last Parliaments of Q. Elizabeth (1680)
- British History Online - 'List of members nominated for Parliament of 1653', Diary of Thomas Burton esq, volume 4: March - April 1659 (1828),
- Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. p. 1.
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)