Sheffield was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom

Parliament of the United Kingdom

The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...

 1832 to 1885. It elected two Members of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 (MPs) by the bloc vote

Plurality-at-large voting

Plurality-at-large voting is a non-proportional voting system for electing several representatives from a single multimember electoral district using a series of check boxes and tallying votes similar to a plurality election...

 system of elections.

The constituency encompassed the urban part of the town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 and parish

Parish

A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...

 (now city

City status in the United Kingdom

City status in the United Kingdom is granted by the British monarch to a select group of communities. The holding of city status gives a settlement no special rights other than that of calling itself a "city". Nonetheless, this appellation carries its own prestige and, consequently, competitions...

) of Sheffield

Sheffield

Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, but not the western, rural, parts of Upper Hallam and Ecclesall Bierlow, which were incorporated into Sheffield Town Borough in 1843.

History

Prior to 1832 Sheffield had been represented by the Yorkshire constituency

Yorkshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Yorkshire was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England from 1290, then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832...

. The Sheffield Borough constituency was created by the Reform Act of 1832

Reform Act 1832

The Representation of the People Act 1832 was an Act of Parliament that introduced wide-ranging changes to the electoral system of England and Wales...

, and was given two MPs

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

, the first time that the town had been represented in the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

. Four candidates stood at the first election contesting these two seats. Voting took place on 13 and 14 December 1832, with the results declared on 15 December (see below). The election sparked a riot on 14 December, which resulted in the military being called out. The soldiers fired on the crowd, killing six people and injuring several others. Following the Redistribution of Seats Act

Redistribution of Seats Act 1885

The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was a piece of electoral reform legislation that redistributed the seats in the House of Commons, introducing the concept of equally populated constituencies, in an attempt to equalise representation across...

 in 1885, which sought to eliminate constituencies with more than one MP and give greater representation to urban areas, the Borough of Sheffield was sub-divided. The five new divisions—Attercliffe, Brightside, Ecclesall

Sheffield Ecclesall (UK Parliament constituency)

Sheffield Ecclesall was a Parliamentary constituency represented by a single Member of Parliament in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1950. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.- Boundaries...

, Hallam, and Sheffield Central—each returned a single MP.

Members of Parliament

Two MPs were elected at each general election. The table below shows the election years in which one or both of the MPs changed.

Election	Member 1		Party	Member 2		Party
1832 United Kingdom general election, 1832 -Seats summary:-Parties and leaders at the general election:The Earl Grey had been Prime Minister since 22 November 1830. His was the first predominantly Whig administration since the Ministry of all the Talents in 1806-1807....		John Parker	Whig		James Silk Buckingham James Silk Buckingham James Silk Buckingham was an English author, journalist and traveller.He was born at Flushing near Falmouth, the son of a farmer, and had a limited education. His youth was spent at sea, and in 1797 he was captured by the French and held as a prisoner of war at Corunna...	Radical Radicals (UK) The Radicals were a parliamentary political grouping in the United Kingdom in the early to mid 19th century, who drew on earlier ideas of radicalism and helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party.-Background:...
1837 United Kingdom general election, 1837 The 1837 United Kingdom general election saw Robert Peel's Conservatives close further on the position of the Whigs, who won their fourth election of the decade....					Henry George Ward Henry George Ward Sir Henry George Ward GCMG was an English diplomat and politician. The son of politician and, in his retirement, writer Robert Ward and his first wife Catherine Julia Maling, and the cousin of William Ward and William George Ward, he entered the diplomatic service in 1816...	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1849 by-election					John Arthur Roebuck John Arthur Roebuck John Arthur Roebuck , British politician, was born at Madras, in India.After the death of his father, a civil servant, his mother's second marriage transferred him to Canada, where he was chiefly brought-up. He came to England in 1824, was called to the bar John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802...	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1852 United Kingdom general election, 1852 The July 1852 United Kingdom general election was a watershed election in the formation of the modern political parties of Britain. Following 1852, the Tory/Conservative party became, more completely, the party of the rural aristocracy, while the Whig/Liberal party became the party of the rising...		George Hadfield	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1868 United Kingdom general election, 1868 The 1868 United Kingdom general election was the first after passage of the Reform Act 1867, which enfranchised many male householders, thus greatly increasing the number of men who could vote in elections in the United Kingdom...					A. J. Mundella	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1874 United Kingdom general election, 1874 -Seats summary:-References:* F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* British Electoral Facts 1832-1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher *...		John Arthur Roebuck John Arthur Roebuck John Arthur Roebuck , British politician, was born at Madras, in India.After the death of his father, a civil servant, his mother's second marriage transferred him to Canada, where he was chiefly brought-up. He came to England in 1824, was called to the bar John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802...	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1879 by-election		Samuel Danks Waddy Samuel Danks Waddy Samuel Danks Waddy was an English politician.He was born in Gateshead, the son of Samuel Dousland Waddy, a Methodist minister. The family soon moved to Sheffield and his father was instrumental in the founding of Wesley College in 1838...	Liberal Liberal Party (UK) The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
1880 United Kingdom general election, 1880 -Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987* British Electoral Facts 1832-1999, compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher *...		Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley Charles Stuart-Wortley, 1st Baron Stuart of Wortley Charles Beilby Stuart-Wortley, 1st Baron Stuart of Wortley PC , was a British Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1880 until 1916, shortly before he was raised to the peerage...	Conservative Conservative Party (UK) The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
1885 United Kingdom general election, 1885 -Seats summary:-See also:*List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1885*Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918*Representation of the People Act 1884*Redistribution of Seats Act 1885-References:...	constituency divided

The constituency was sub-divided in 1885. The sitting MPs, A. J. Mundella and Charles Stuart-Wortley subsequently stood for and won seats in one of the new constituencies (Sheffield Brightside and Sheffield Hallam respectively).

Elections in the 1880s

Elections in the 1870s

Elections in the 1860s

Elections in the 1850s

At the Sheffield by-election, 1859, John Arthur Roebuck

John Arthur Roebuck

John Arthur Roebuck , British politician, was born at Madras, in India.After the death of his father, a civil servant, his mother's second marriage transferred him to Canada, where he was chiefly brought-up. He came to England in 1824, was called to the bar John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802...

 was elected unopposed.

Elections in the 1840s

At the Sheffield by-election, 1849, John Arthur Roebuck

John Arthur Roebuck

John Arthur Roebuck , British politician, was born at Madras, in India.After the death of his father, a civil servant, his mother's second marriage transferred him to Canada, where he was chiefly brought-up. He came to England in 1824, was called to the bar John Arthur Roebuck (28 December 1802...

 was elected unopposed.

Elections in the 1830s

External links

• Wikisource: Report on the Town of Sheffield; with a Description of the Proposed Boundary