Cambridge University (constituency)

Cambridge University was a university constituency electing two members to the English House of Commons from 1603 and from 1707 British House of Commons to 1950.

Seats2

Replaced byCambridge

Quick facts 1603–1950, Seats ...

Cambridge University
Former university constituency for the House of Commons
1603–1950
Seats	2
Replaced by	Cambridge

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Franchise and method of election

This university constituency was created by a Royal Charter of 1603. It was abolished in 1950 by the Representation of the People Act 1948.

The constituency was not a geographical area. Its electorate consisted of the graduates of the University of Cambridge. Before 1918 the franchise was restricted to male graduates with a Doctorate or Master of Arts degree. Sedgwick records that there were 377 electors in 1727. For the 1754–1790 period, Namier and Brooke estimated the electorate at about 500.

The constituency returned two Members of Parliament. Before 1918 they were elected by plurality-at-large voting, but from 1918 onwards the two members were elected by the Single Transferable Vote method.

History

In the early 18th century, the electors of both English universities were mostly Tories, but the Whig ministers of King George I were able to persuade him to use his royal prerogative to confer Cambridge doctorates on a large number of Whigs, so that from 1727 the university largely returned Whig representatives. At Oxford, the King did not enjoy the same prerogative power, so that the University of Oxford constituency remained Tory, and indeed often Jacobite, in its preferences.

The leading 18th-century Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1748 to 1768 and recommended to the electors suitable candidates to represent them in Parliament. This practice continued under his successor, another Whig Duke and Prime Minister, Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, Chancellor of the university from 1768 to 1811. However, Grafton was less influential as a politician than Newcastle had been and also less attentive towards the university, and as a result some of his nominations came in for criticism, notably that of his friend Richard Croftes.

Croftes was far from typical of a university member of parliament: he was neither the son of a peer, like the Hon. John Townshend, the Marquess of Granby, and Grafton's own son the Earl of Euston, nor a distinguished lawyer-politician, such as William de Grey, James Mansfield, and Sir Vicary Gibbs, nor a prominent political figure like William Pitt the Younger and Lord Henry Petty. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Pittite and Tory candidates began to be elected. At the appearance of this political development, some of the Pittite members, including the younger William Pitt himself, one of the members for the university from 1784 to 1806, described themselves as Whigs. As time passed, the division between the 19th century Tory and Whig parties became clearer.

The future Prime Minister, Viscount Palmerston, retained his university seat as a Whig after he left the Tory ranks, but in 1831 he was defeated. After Palmerston ceased to represent the university he was elected by a territorial constituency. From then until the 1920s, all of the university's members were Tories and/or Conservatives.

Even after the introduction of the single transferable vote in 1918, most of the members continued to be elected as Conservatives.

Members of Parliament

This is a list of people who have been elected to represent this university in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

1603 to 1660

Constituency created 1603

More information Year, First member ...

Year	First member	Second member
1604	Nicholas Steward	Henry Mountlow
1614	Sir Miles Sandys	Sir Francis Bacon
1621	Robert Naunton	Barnaby Gough
1624	Sir Robert Naunton	Barnaby Gough
1625	Sir Robert Naunton	Sir Albert Morton
1626	Thomas Eden	Sir John Coke
1628–1629	Thomas Eden	Sir John Coke
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned
Apr 1640	Thomas Eden	Henry Lucas
Nov 1640	Thomas Eden	Henry Lucas
Eden died 1644 replaced by Nathaniel Bacon
1648	Lucas secluded in Pride's Purge
1654	Henry Cromwell	(one seat only)
1656	Richard Cromwell	(one seat only)
1659	John Thurloe	Thomas Sclater

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1660 to 1784

More information Year, Member ...

Year	Member	Party	Member	Party
1660 Apr	George Monck		Thomas Crouch
1660 Jun	William Montagu
1661	Sir Richard Fanshawe
1667	Sir Charles Wheler, 2nd Baronet
1679	Sir Thomas Exton		James Vernon
1681	Sir Thomas Exton		Robert Brady
1689	Sir Robert Sawyer		Isaac Newton	Whig
1690	Sir Robert Sawyer		Edward Finch
1692	Henry Boyle	Whig	Edward Finch
1695			George Oxenden
1698			Anthony Hammond
1701			Isaac Newton	Court Whig
1702			Arthur Annesley	Tory
1705	Dixie Windsor	Tory	Arthur Annesley	Tory
1710			Thomas Paske	Tory
1720			Thomas Willoughby	Tory
1727	Edward Finch	Whig	Thomas Townshend	Whig
1768	Charles Yorke	Rockingham Whig
1770	William de Grey
1771	Richard Croftes
1774			Charles Manners, Marquess of Granby
1779			James Mansfield
1780	Lord John Townshend	Whig	James Mansfield

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1784 to 1950

More information Year, Member ...

Year		Party		Party
1784	William Pitt the Younger	Tory¹^[1]	Earl of Euston	Whig^[1]
1806	Lord Henry Petty	Whig^[1]
1807	Sir Vicary Gibbs	Tory^[1]
1811	Sir Vicary Gibbs	Tory^[1]	Viscount Palmerston	Tory^[1]
1812	John Henry Smyth	Whig^[1]
1822	William John Bankes	Tory^[1]
1826	Sir John Copley	Tory^[1]
1827	Sir Nicholas Conyngham Tindal	Tory^[1]
1829	William Cavendish	Whig^[1]
1830	William Cavendish	Whig^[1]		Whig^[1]
1831	Henry Goulburn	Tory^[1]	William Yates Peel	Tory^[1]
1832		Tory^[1]	Charles Manners-Sutton	Tory^[1]
1834		Conservative^[1]	Charles Manners-Sutton	Conservative^[1]
1835			Hon. Charles Law	Conservative^[1]
1850			Loftus Wigram	Conservative
1856	Spencer Horatio Walpole	Conservative	Loftus Wigram	Conservative
1859			Charles Jasper Selwyn	Conservative
1868			Alexander Beresford Hope	Conservative
1882	Henry Cecil Raikes	Conservative	Alexander Beresford Hope	Conservative
1887	Henry Cecil Raikes	Conservative	Sir George Stokes, Bt	Conservative
1891	Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb ²	Conservative	Sir George Stokes, Bt	Conservative
1892	Sir Richard Claverhouse Jebb ²	Conservative	Sir John Eldon Gorst	Conservative
1906	Samuel Butcher	Conservative	John Rawlinson	Conservative
1911	Sir Joseph Larmor	Conservative		Conservative
1918	Sir Joseph Larmor	Co. Conservative ³		Co. Conservative³
1922	J. R. M. Butler	Ind. Liberal⁴		Conservative
1923	Sir Geoffrey G. Butler ⁵	Conservative		Conservative
1926	Sir Geoffrey G. Butler ⁵	Conservative	Sir John Withers	Conservative
1929	Godfrey Wilson	Conservative
1935	Sir Kenneth Pickthorn	Conservative
1940			Dr. Archibald Hill	Ind. Conservative⁴
1945			Wilson Harris	Independent

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Notes:-

¹ Pitt called himself a Whig, but is usually retrospectively regarded as a Tory since most of his followers (whether their background was in the Whig or Tory tradition) came to call themselves the Tory Party in the decade after Pitt's death.
² Jebb died on 10 December 1905 – seat vacant at dissolution.
³ Co. is an abbreviation for Coalition.
⁴ Ind. is an abbreviation for Independent.
⁵ Sir Geoffrey G. Butler died on 2 May 1929 – seat vacant at dissolution.