Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency)


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

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. 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

1784 to 1950

Notes:-

Election by Block Vote 1715–1918

Elections in the 1710s

Elections in the 1720s

Elections in the 1880s

Walpole's resignation caused a by-election.
Raikes was appointed Postmaster General, requiring a by-election.
Beresford-Hope's death caused a by-election.

Elections in the 1890s

Elections in the 1900s

Elections in the 1910s

Elections 1918–1950

General Elections, from 1918 when most constituencies polled on the same day, were on different polling days than for territorial constituencies. The polls for university constituencies were open for five days. The elections were also conducted by Single Transferable Vote.

Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1920s