Hertfordshire (UK Parliament Constituency) - History

History

The constituency consisted of the historic county of Hertfordshire. (Although Hertfordshire contained two boroughs, Hertford and St Albans, each of which elected two MPs in its own right, these were not excluded from the county constituency, and owning property within the borough could confer a vote at the county election.)

As in other county constituencies the franchise between 1430 and 1832 was defined by the Forty Shilling Freeholder Act, which gave the right to vote to every man who possessed freehold property within the county valued at £2 or more per year for the purposes of land tax; it was not necessary for the freeholder to occupy his land, nor even in later years to be resident in the county at all.

Except during the period of the Commonwealth, Hertfordshire has two MPs elected by the bloc vote method, under which each voter had two votes. In the nominated Barebones Parliament, two members represented Hertfordshire. In the First and Second Parliaments of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate, however, there was a general redistribution of seats and Hertfordshire elected five members, while each of the boroughs had their representation reduced to a single MP. The traditional arrangements were restored from 1659.