Wendover (UK Parliament constituency)

Wendover
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1300–1832

Wendover was a borough constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832. It was represented by two Members of Parliament, and was considered a classic example of a pocket borough.

History

Wendover first sent members to Parliament in 1300, but after 1308, elected no burgesses for more than 300 years. However, in the 17th century a solicitor named William Hakewill, of Lincoln's Inn, rediscovered ancient writs confirming that Amersham, Great Marlow, and Wendover had all sent members to Parliament in the past, and succeeded in re-establishing their privileges (despite the opposition of James I), so that they resumed electing members from the Parliament of 1624. Hakewill himself was elected for Amersham in 1624.

The borough consisted of most of the market town of Wendover in Buckinghamshire. It was one of the smallest boroughs in England: in 1831, the population of the borough was approximately 802, and contained 171 houses. (The whole town contained 198 houses.) The right to vote was exercised by all inhabitant householders not receiving alms, which amounted to about 130 voters in 1831. Although this was a relatively large electorate for the time based on apparently democratic franchise, the borough and inhabitants were totally dependent on the Lord of the Manor, who was able to exercise considerable influence and sometimes total control over the choice of MPs. In the 17th century, this patronage lay with the Hampden family, but in 1720 Richard Hampden apparently attempted to sell his interest in the borough to the government after losing £80,000 in the South Sea Bubble; what price he received for it, or whether the sale ever took place, is not recorded. By the 1750s, Wendover had passed to Earl Verney, and Namier lists his power as only being one of influence rather than total control; but by 1832 the Smith family (headed by Lord Carrington) seem to have been able to regard it as an absolutely secure pocket borough.

Wendover was abolished as a constituency by the Great Reform Act in 1832, those of its inhabitants who were qualified to vote under the new franchise doing so in the Buckinghamshire county constituency.

Members of Parliament

Year	First member	Second member
1300	Thomas Niccolls	Egidius Wilson
1300	Walter de Kent	John de Sandwell
1300	Robert atte Hull	Elias de Broughton

• Constituency disenfranchised (1309)
• Constituency re-enfranchised (1624)

Year	First member	Second member
1624	John Hampden	Alexander Denton
1625		Richard Hampden
1626		Sampson Darrell
1628		Ralph Hawtree
April 1640		Bennet Hoskyns
November 1640	Robert Croke (Royalist) Disabled to sit, November 1643	Thomas Fountaine (Parliamentarian), Died 1646
1645(?)	Richard Ingoldsby
1646		Thomas Harrison
Wendover was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
1659	John Baldwin	William Hampden

Year			First member	First party	Second member	Second party
		1660	Richard Hampden	Whig	John Baldwin
		1661			Robert Croke
		1673			Edward Backwell
		1673			Hon. Thomas Wharton	Whig
		1679			Edward Backwell
		1681	John Hampden
		1685	Richard Hampden		John Backwell
		1689			John Hampden
		1690	Richard Beke		John Backwell
		January 1701	Richard Hampden
		November 1701			Richard Crawley
		July 1702			Sir Roger Hill
		November 1702			Richard Crawley
		1705			Sir Roger Hill
		1708	Thomas Ellys
		1709	Henry Grey	Whig
		1713	Richard Hampden
		1714	James Stanhope	Whig
		1715	Richard Grenville
		1722	Richard Hampden		Sir Richard Steele	Whig
		1727			The Viscount Limerick
		1728	John Hamilton
		1734	John Boteler[1]		John Hampden
		1735	The Viscount Limerick
		1741	The Earl Verney	Tory
		1753	The Earl Verney	Tory
		1754			John Calvert
		1761	Richard Chandler-Cavendish		Verney Lovett
		1765			Edmund Burke	Whig
		1768	Sir Robert Darling
		1770	Joseph Bullock
		October 1774			John Adams[2]
		December 1774			Henry Drummond
		1775	Thomas Dummer
		1780	Richard Smith		John Mansell Smith
		1784	Robert Burton		John Ord
		1790	John Barker Church		Hon. Hugh Seymour-Conway[3]
		1796	John Hiley Addington	Tory	George Canning	Tory
		1802	Charles Long	Tory	John Smith	Tory
		1806	Viscount Mahon[4]	Whig	George Smith	Whig
		1807	Francis Horner	Whig
		1812	Abel Smith	Tory
		1818	Robert Carrington	Whig
		1820	Samuel Smith	Tory
		1830			Abel Smith	Tory

Notes

1. Boteler's election was declared void on the grounds that he did not meet the land ownership requirements to be a Member of Parliament, and a by-election was held to replace him.
2. Adams was also elected for Carmarthen, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Wendover.
3. Styled Lord Hugh Seymour from June 1793.
4. Mahon was also elected for Hull, which he chose to represent, and never sat for Wendover.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 2)
• GENUKI
• D. Brunton & D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition; London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• 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)