Bletchingley was a parliamentary borough in Surrey. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 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, when the constituency was abolished by the Great Reform Act.
Elections were held using the bloc vote system.
The constituency was just 3 miles south-east of the similar rotten borough of Gatton.
History Bletchingley was one of the original boroughs enfranchised in the Model Parliament, and kept its status until the Reform Act. The borough consisted of the former market town of Bletchingley in Surrey, which by the 19th century had shrunk to a village. In 1831, the population of the borough was 513, and it contained only 85 houses. It was a burgage borough: the right to vote was exercised by the owners or resident tenants of the 130 "burgage tenements". No doubt at some point in history these were simply the inhabited houses of the town, but it was already an artificial franchise by the time it was disputed before the House of Commons in 1624, when it was settled that Bletchingley's burgage holders should keep the vote as they had "time out of mind". By the 19th century of course, with more burgages in the borough than houses, the notion of its being a residential franchise was no more than a legal fiction.
Like other burgage boroughs, Bletchingley quickly fell into the hands of a single landowner who thereby had the safest of pocket boroughs. It was once the property of Henry VIII's rejected Queen, Anne of Cleves. From her it passed to Sir Thomas Cawarden, the Master of the Revels, and from his heir to Lord Howard of Effingham, father of the future conqueror of the Spanish Armada, in about 1560. It then remained in Howard hands for more than half a century, one of several boroughs controlled by that powerful family.
However, the 1624 dispute occurred when the voters daringly defied Lady Howard, and it may not have been entirely secure for any single "patron" for the rest of the century. By 1700, there were two rival influences: the Evelyns of Godstone, who had succeeded in holding one of the seats for much of the preceding sixty years, and Sir Robert Clayton, a London banker who was said to be the wealthiest commoner in England, and who was now Lord of the manor. Neither held a majority of the burgages, and there were still a fair number of independent voters. For some years, Evelyn and Clayton had to be content with choosing one MP each, and even then had to face some tightly contested votes, but after the accession of George I (1714), Clayton's nephew and heir, William Clayton, managed to accumulate enough of the burgages in his own hands to squeeze out the Evelyn influence and eventually make his hold absolutely watertight. Since the importance of a man with the absolute power to nominate two Members of Parliament was not underestimated by 18th century governments, he quickly found himself dignified with a baronetcy.
Parliamentary elections were held from 1733 in what is now the White Hart inn: a book in 1844 notes this and that eight to ten people voted, as well as a sale of the manor for £60,000 in 1816.
The Claytons retained Bletchingley until 1779. In that year, short of money and with talk of parliamentary reform in the air, Sir Robert Clayton decided to realise the asset while it still had a value, and sold the reversion of his property at Bletchingley (which by now included all the burgages) to his cousin, John Kenrick, for £10,000. Once the prospect of parliamentary reform had receded for the time being, Clayton repented of his bargain and filed an action in Chancery against Kenrick, claiming that he had been "imposed upon" and had been paid quite an inadequate amount; but the court sympathised with Kenrick, and dismissed the action with costs.
In 1816 (see above), Kenrick's son later sold the rights to William Russell for £60,000; and his grandson William Russell made seats available to some of the rising stars of the Whig party. They included two future Prime Ministers: Hon. William Lamb (Prime Minister as Lord Melbourne) and Lord Palmerston.
Bletchingley was abolished as a constituency by the Reform Act. From then on, the village was included in the Eastern division of Surrey.
Members of Parliament 1295–1640
ParliamentFirst memberSecond member 1386William Bart John atte Wyke 1388 (Feb) Robert Nafferton William Nightingale 1388 (Sep) William Hart Henry atte Stone I 1390 (Jan) John DeubeneyeWilliam Nightingale 1390 (Nov) 1391 1393William Hart Richard Turner 1394 1395William Hart William Tanner 1397 (Jan) William Hart Richard Turner 1397 (Sep) John Deubeneye Thomas atte Helde 1399John Deubeneye Thomas atte Helde 1401 1402William Hart John Modys 1404 (Jan) 1404 (Oct) 1407 1410 1411 1413 (Feb) 1413 (May) 1414 (Apr) 1414 (Nov) William Hart Roger Eylove 1415William Hart John Modys 1416 (Mar) Roger Eylove John Modys 1416 (Oct) 1417William Hart Robert Axi 1419Roger -? John -? 1420 1421 (May) Walter atte Berne John Knoller 1421 (Dec) Henry Brampton Henry atte Stone II 1422Thomas Eylove 1472 Henry Winter 1491 William FisherThomas Garth 1510–1523 No names known 1529Nicholas Leigh John St John 1536 ? 1539 ? 1542Thomas Cawarden William Sackville 1545 ? 1547Sir Thomas Cawarden, sat for Surrey replaced by Jan 1552 by Henry Polsted John Cheke 1553 (Mar) Sir John Cheke Sir Maurice Berkeley 1553 (Oct) Henry Polsted Matthew Colthurst 1554 (Apr) John Harman Nicholas Saunders 1554 (Nov) Humphrey Cholmley Robert Freeman 1555John Vaughan William Smethwick 1558Bertram Calthorpe Roger Alford 1558–9 John Brace William Porter 1562–3 John Coker John Elsedon 1571Roeland Maynard Richard Bostock 1572 Thomas Browne Henry Kenrick, died and replaced Nov 1579 by Richard Bostock 1584 Richard Bostock John Cox 1586 Sir Thomas Browne John Cox 1588 Richard Bostock John Cox 1593 Julius Caesar Stephen Riddlesden 1597 Lord Howard of Effingham, sat for Surrey replaced by Sir Richard Trevor John Trevor 1601 John Turner Bostock Fuller 1604 Sir John Trevor Richard Bellingham died and replaced by Sir Charles Howard 1614 Sir John Trevor Sir Charles Howard 1621–1622 John Hayward Henry Lovell 1624 Sir Miles Fleetwood sat for Launceston, replaced by Edward Bysshe the elder John Hayward 1625 Edward Bysshe the elder Thomas Gresham 1626 Edward Bysshe the elder Henry Lovell 1628 Sir Edward Bishopp, 2nd Baronet John Evelyn, senior 1629–1640No Parliaments summoned
1640–1832 YearFirst memberFirst partySecond memberSecond partyApril 1640 Edmiund Hoskins Edward Bysshe the elder November 1640 John Evelyn, seniorParliamentarian Edward Bysshe the youngerParliamentarian December 1648Evelyn and Bysshe excluded in Pride's Purge: both seats vacant1653Bletchingley was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament and the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate.January 1659 John GoodwinEdmund HoskinsMay 1659Not represented in the restored RumpApril 1660 John Evelyn, senior John Goodwin 1661 Sir William Hawarde Edward Bysshe February 1679 George Evelyn Edward Harvey October 1679 John Morris 1681 Sir William Goulston 1685 Ambrose Browne Sir Marmaduke Gresham January 1689 Thomas Howard John Glyd December 1689 Jeffrey Amherst 1690 Sir Robert Clayton Whig 1695 Maurice Thompson 1698 Hugh Hare Sir Robert Clayton Whig 1701 Sir Edward Gresham John Ward July 1702 John Evelyn December 1702 Sir Robert Clayton Whig 1705 George Evelyn 1708 Thomas Onslow 1715 (Sir) William Clayton 1724 Henry Herbert 1727 Sir Orlando Bridgeman Whig 1734 (Sir) Kenrick Clayton 1745 William Clayton 1761 (Sir) Charles Whitworth 1768 (Sir) Robert Clayton 1769 Frederick Standert 1780 John Kenrick 1783 John Nicholls 1787 (Sir) Robert Clayton 1790 Philip Francis 1796 Sir Lionel Copley John Stein 1797 Benjamin Hobhouse 1802 James Milnes John Benn Walsh 1805 Nicholas Ridley-Colborne 1806 Josias Porcher William Kenrick January 1807 John Alexander Bannerman May 1807 Thomas Freeman-Heathcote 1809 Charles Cockerell October 1812 Sir Charles Talbot December 1812 Robert Newman 1814 John Bolland 1818 Matthew Russell Whig George Tennyson WhigFebruary 1819 Sir William Curtis ToryFebruary 1819 Marquess of Titchfield Whig 1820 Edward Henry Edwardes 1822 Lord Francis Leveson-Gower Tory 1826 William Russell Whig Charles Tennyson Whig 1827 Hon. William Lamb Whig 1828 William Ewart Whig 1830 Robert William Mills WhigFebruary 1831 Sir William Horne WhigApril 1831 Hon. John Ponsonby WhigJuly 1831 Thomas Hyde Villiers Whig Viscount Palmerston Whig1832 Constituency abolished
Notes
Election results
Elections in the 1830s
Caused by Ponsonby's resignation and Tennyson's decision to sit for Stamford, where he had also been elected.
Caused by Mills' resignation
Caused by Tennyson's appointment as Clerk of the Ordnance
References
Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) 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) David W. Hayton, Stuart Handley and Eveline Cruickshanks, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) Maija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1988) Lewis Namier & John Brooke, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1754–1790 (London: HMSO, 1964) J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London: Jonathan Cape, 1949) 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) Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847 (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973) Robert Walcott, English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956)