Knights of Buckinghamshire - Preliminary Notes

Preliminary Notes

The parliamentary electoral constituency, representing the historic county of Buckinghamshire, was created in (1265): see De Montfort's Parliament for further details and History of Buckinghamshire for maps of the historic county. This county constituency was represented by two knights of the shire until 1832 and three 1832-1885.

Knights of the shire are known to have been summoned to most parliaments from 1290 (19th Parliament of King Edward I of England) and to every one from 1320 (19th Parliament of King Edward II of England).

Although at some periods several Parliaments were held in a year, at others there were considerable gaps between Parliaments. Knights of the shire were also summoned to meetings which have not been classified as Parliaments by modern expert opinion. The names of the members in some Parliaments are not known.

The English civil year started on 25 March until 1752 (Scotland having changed to 1 January in 1600). The years used for parliaments in this article have been converted to the new style where necessary. It should be noted that old style dates would be a year earlier than the new style for days between 1 January and 24 March, for example the Parliament of 18 March 1313 – 9 May 1313 (new style) would be 18 March 1312 – 9 May 1313 (old style). No attempt has been made to compensate for the eleven days which did not occur in September 1752 in both England and Scotland as well as other British controlled territories (when the day after 2 September was 14 September), so as to bring the British Empire fully in line with the Gregorian calendar.

The names of knights of the shire, taken from the list in The History and Antiquities of Buckinghamshire by George Lipscomb (unless a volume from the History of Parliament Trust on the House of Commons at a particular period is available), are given in alphabetical order for each group of representatives.

There are some minor variations in names from the source used, which unless the contrary is known, are assumed to relate to the same person. It is possible that some entries relate to different persons of the same name. Where such cases have been identified the persons have been distinguished by a roman number after the name (in order of first election); except where the number used to distinguish different candidates of the same name during the same period, by the authors of the books on the House of Commons mention in the references section, are used.

As the dates of Parliaments came from a twentieth century source and the names of persons elected came from Lipscomb (published between 1831 and 1847) it was sometimes impossible to be certain, from those sources, who served in a Parliament and who attended other meetings accorded lesser status. There is also some uncertainty as to whether Lipscomb did or did not use new style years and if so whether the method used in his list is consistent. An attempt has been made to give the best fit possible and to indicate the year (and if necessary the number within the year) from Lipscomb's list. The places of some Parliaments were indicated in footnotes to Lipscomb's list and are given here as they may assist with further research to confirm the link between specific knights of the shire and a particular Parliament.