Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 - Provisions

Provisions

The basis of the redistribution under the Act was as follows: The number of seats in the Commons was increased from 652a to 670.

• All parliamentary boroughs with a population of 15,000 or less ceased to have separate representation, and were merged into a division of the parliamentary county in which they lay. In all seventy-nine boroughs were disenfranchised.
• Six other boroughs were also merged into the county divisions: four that included large extents of countryside (Aylesbury, Cricklade, East Retford, Shoreham) and two that had been disenfranchised for corruption (Macclesfield and Sandwich).
• Existing boroughs with populations between 15,000 and 50,000 were to have their representation reduced from two MPs to one. In all this affected 36 boroughs.
• Existing boroughs with a population of more than 50,000 (twenty-three in all) continued to be undivided two-member constituencies. In addition the City of London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin continued to be double-member constituencies.
• Two English counties with very low populations lost an MP each: Rutland was reduced to a single member and Herefordshire was reduced to two MPs from three.

In total 160 seats were redistributed (or "liberated" as Gladstone described it) in England and Wales. The number of seats in Scotland was increased by 12, and the representation of Ireland in Parliament remained at 103 members, even though its population had declined relative to the rest of the United Kingdom, due to emigration which had continued since the famine. This arrangement was described by The Times as "...obviously dictated by a somewhat pusillanimous calculation that it was better to avoid a struggle with the Parnellite party."

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