Beverley - Governance

Governance

During the Middle Ages, Beverley was governed by aldermen known as the twelve keepers, they oversaw the general running of the town and the maintaining of law and order. The borough corporation was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and formed the local government of the town until 1974. In 1974, following the Local Government Act 1972, the former area of Beverley borough was merged with Beverley Rural District and Haltemprice Urban District to form an enlarged Beverley borough in the county of Humberside. Since 1996 it has formed part of the East Riding of Yorkshire district, and is the county town, as it was before 1974.

Beverley was represented in the Houses of Parliament by the Member of Parliament of Yorkshire until Beverley was given parliamentary borough status from 1563. Beverley was able to elect two MPs for its entire time as a parliamentary borough; the right of election was vested not in the population as a whole, but in the freemen. Elections became notorious for their corruption, to the extent that the constituency was abolished in 1870 and incorporated into the East Riding constituency. During the 1950 general election a Beverley county constituency was created, covering half of the East Riding, with Bridlington covering the other half. It became part of the Haltemprice constituency in 1955, until it reverted to the Beverley constituency in 1983. Since 1997 Beverley has been part of the Beverley and Holderness constituency, a Conservative Party stronghold.