Bath (UK Parliament constituency)

Bath was one of the cities summoned to send members to the Model Parliament of 1295, and has been represented ever since. Like almost all English constituencies before the Great Reform Act of 1832, it originally returned two members to each Parliament.

The precise way in which its MPs were chosen in medieval times is unknown. It is recorded that "election was by the Mayor and three citizens being sent from thence to the county court who in the name of the whole community, and by the assent of the community, returned their representatives"; but what form the "assent of the community" took is unrecorded, even assuming it was not a complete dead letter. By the 17th century elections had become more competitive, and the means of election in Bath had been formalised to a franchise restricted to the Mayor, Aldermen and members of the Common Council (the City Corporation), a total of thirty voters. The freemen of the city challenged this state of affairs in 1661 and again in 1705 claiming the right to vote and petitioning against the election of the candidates chosen by the corporation, but on both occasions the House of Commons, which in those days was the final arbiter of such disputes, decided against them. The Commons resolution of 27 January 1708, "That the right of election of citizens to serve in Parliament for this city is in the mayor, aldermen and common-council only", settled the matter until 1832.

Bath was the biggest of the English boroughs where the right to vote was restricted to the corporation (at the time of the 1801 census it was one of the ten largest towns or cities in England by population), and almost unique in that the voters generally exercised their powers responsibly and independently. As was the case elsewhere, the Common Council was not popularly elected, all vacancies being filled by co-option by the remaining members, so that once any interest gained majority control it was easy to retain it. Most corporation boroughs quickly became pocket boroughs in this way, the nomination of their MPs being entirely under the influence of a "patron" who ensured that only his supporters became members of the corporation. But in Bath, the Common Council retained its independence in most periods, and took pride in electing suitable MPs who either had strong local connections or a national reputation. Nor was there any suggestion of bribery or other corruption, which often took the place of a patron's control in other "independent" constituencies. Pitt the Elder wrote to the corporation in 1761, on the occasion of his re-election as Bath's MP, to pay tribute to "a city ranked among the most ancient and most considerable in the kingdom, and justly famed for its integrity, independence, and zeal for the public good".

But even in Bath the voters expected their MPs to work for the constituency's advantage and procure favours for their constituents to a degree that would be considered utterly corrupt today. By exercising their efforts successfully in this direction, MPs could in return expect a degree of control over the voters that differed little from patronage in pocket boroughs except that its duration was limited. Thus the lawyer Robert Henley, MP from 1747 and Recorder of Bath from 1751, seems to have been assumed to have had control over both seats while he remained Bath's MP; yet when he was transferred to the House of Lords, Pitt replaced him on the understanding that he was independently chosen. Pitt himself then acquired a similar degree of influence: the Council vetoed Viscount Ligonier's suggestion that he should be succeeded by his nephew when he was elevated the Lords in 1763, but instead allowed Pitt to nominate a candidate to be his new colleague, and voted overwhelmingly for him when he was opposed by a local man. But Pitt's influence also waned when he fell out with the Council over the Treaty of Paris.

In the final years before the Reform Act, however, local magnates seem to have been allowed to exercise more influence in Bath. Oldfield, writing early in the 19th century, stated that at that time the Marquess of Bath nominated one member and John Palmer the other; both were former MPs for the City (the Marquess having sat under the title Viscount Weymouth), but neither was still in the Commons - each had a family member sitting in their stead as MP for Bath. Palmer had succeeded another former MP, Earl Camden (the former John Jeffreys Pratt), who had held one of the nominations before 1802. At the time of the Reform Act, the Marquess of Bath was still being listed as influencing one of the seats, though the second was considered independent once more.

The reformed constituency (1832-1918)

The Great Reform Act opened up the franchise, imposing uniform provisions across all boroughs and allowing all resident (male) householders whose houses were valued at at least �10 a year. This multiplied Bath's electorate by a factor of almost 100 (there were 2,853 voters registered at the first reformed election, in December 1832), and created a competitive and generally marginal constituency which swung between Whig and Conservative control. The constituency boundaries were also slightly extended, but only to take in those areas where the city proper had grown outside its previous limits. Bath's most notable MP during this period was probably the Conservative social reformer Lord Ashley, better remembered under his eventual title of 7th Earl of Shaftesbury for the Factory Acts, the first of which came into effect while he was MP for Bath.

The franchise was further reformed in 1867 and 1885, but there were only minor boundary changes. Bath was probably lucky to retain its double-representation in the 1885 reforms, its electorate of under 7,000 being very near the lower limit. The continued Liberal strength was unusual for a prosperous and predominantly middle-class town, and the seats could never be considered safe for the Conservatives.

The modern single-member constituency (since 1918)

Bath's representation was reduced to a single member in 1918. The Conservatives held the seat continuously until 1992 except in the 1923 Parliament, and until the War generally won comfortably. The Liberals retained their strength so that the non-Conservative vote was split, and Labour could not rise above third place until the landslide of 1945, when the Conservative James Pitman only narrowly squeezed home. For the next thirty years Bath verged on being a Conservative-Labour marginal, and Labour came within 800 votes of taking the seat in 1966.

The Liberal revival in the 1970s pushed Labour back into third place, helped by the adoption of a nationally-known candidate, Christopher Mayhew, who had defected from the Labour Party. The formation of the SDP-Liberal Alliance made Bath a realistic target. The SDP came just 1500 votes from winning in 1987 under Malcolm Dean. In 1992, Conservative Chris Patten was ousted by Liberal Democrat Don Foster in a narrow defeat which was widely blamed on Patten's being forced to concentrate during the election on his national responsibilities as Conservative Party Chairman rather than nursing his own constituency.

The boundary changes implemented in 1997 expanded the constituency beyond the city for the first time, to include five village wards from the neighbouring Wansdyke district, encompassing about 7,000 voters. This change was considered slightly beneficial to the Conservatives. Nevertheless, Foster more than doubled his majority, and increased it again in 2001.

Members of Parliament

List of MPs 1295-1640

List of MPs 1640-1918

Year	First member	First party	Second member	Second party
November 1640		William Bassett	Royalist		Alexander Popham	Parliamentarian
February 1642	Bassett disabled from sitting - seat vacant
1645		James Ashe
1653	Bath was unrepresented in the Barebones Parliament
1654		Alexander Popham ^[1]	Bath had only one seat in the First and Second Parliaments of the Protectorate
1656		James Ashe
January 1659				John Harrington
May 1659			One seat vacant
March 1660		Alexander Popham			William Prynne
November 1669		Alexander Popham			Sir Francis Popham
November 1669		Sir William Bassett			Sir Francis Popham
1675		Sir William Bassett			Sir George Speke
1679		Sir Walter Long			Sir George Speke
1681		The Viscount Fitzhardinge			Sir William Bassett
1690		Joseph Langton			Sir William Bassett
1693		Joseph Langton			William Blathwayt	Whig
1695		Sir Thomas Estcourt
1698		Alexander Popham
1707		Samuel Trotman
1710		Samuel Trotman			John Codrington
1720		Robert Gay
1722		General George Wade ^[2]
1727					Robert Gay
1734					John Codrington
1741					Philip Bennet
1747					Robert Henley
1748		General Sir John Ligonier ^[3]			Robert Henley
1757		General Sir John Ligonier ^[3]			William Pitt the Elder	Whig
1763		Major-General Sir John Sebright			William Pitt the Elder	Whig
1766		Major-General Sir John Sebright			John Smith
1774		Abel Moysey			John Smith
1775					Lieutenant-General Sir John Sebright
1780					Hon. John Jeffreys Pratt ^[4]
1790		Viscount Weymouth			Hon. John Jeffreys Pratt ^[4]
1794		Viscount Weymouth			Sir Richard Pepper Arden
1796		Lord John Thynne			Sir Richard Pepper Arden
1801					John Palmer
1808					Charles Palmer
1826					Earl of Brecknock
1830					Charles Palmer	Whig
1832		John Arthur Roebuck	Whig		Charles Palmer	Whig
1837		The Viscount Powerscourt	Conservative		William Heald Ludlow Bruges	Conservative
1841		Viscount Duncan	Whig		John Arthur Roebuck	Whig
1847					Lord Ashley	Conservative
1851					George Treweeke Scobell	Whig
1852		Thomas Phinn	Whig
1855		(Sir) William Tite	Whig
1857			Whig		Sir Arthur Hallam Elton	Whig
1859			Liberal		Arthur Edwin Way	Conservative
1865					James Macnaghten McGarel-Hogg	Conservative
1868					Donald Dalrymple	Liberal
May 1873		Viscount Chelsea	Conservative
June 1873		Viscount Grey de Wilton	Conservative
October 1873		Viscount Grey de Wilton	Conservative		(Sir) Arthur Divett Hayter	Liberal
February 1874		Nathaniel Bousfield	Conservative
1880		Edmond Wodehouse	Liberal
1885			Liberal		Robert Stickney Blaine	Conservative
1886			Liberal Unionist		Colonel Robert Laurie	Conservative
1892			Liberal Unionist		Colonel (Sir) Charles Wyndham Murray	Conservative
1906		Donald Maclean	Liberal		George Peabody Gooch	Liberal
1910		Lord Alexander Thynne	Conservative		Sir Charles Hunter	Conservative
October 1918		Charles Talbot Foxcroft	Conservative		Sir Charles Hunter	Conservative
1918	Representation reduced to one Member

List of MPs since 1918

Notes

Elections

Elections in the 2000s

The 2005 general election saw two more candidates stand than in 2001, both of whom were independent. All parties apart from the Liberal Democrats ran different candidates.