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This is a chronological list of parliamentary constituencies in the Kingdom of Great Britain and its successor state the United Kingdom which were represented by sitting prime ministers.
A majority of constituencies are or were (in the case of those abolished) in England, apart from three in Wales and six in Scotland. No prime minister has represented a constituency in Ireland or Northern Ireland.
Constituency | County | Prime Minister | Portrait | Start | End | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
King's Lynn | Norfolk | Sir Robert Walpole | 3 April 1721 | 6 February 1742 | Regarded as the first prime minister in the modern sense. Created Earl of Orford on 6 February 1742 | ||
Earl of Orford | House of Lords | The Earl of Orford | 6 February 1742 | 11 February 1742 | See previous entry. | ||
Earl of Wilmington | House of Lords | The Earl of Wilmington | 16 February 1742 | 2 July 1743 | |||
Sussex | Sussex | Henry Pelham | 27 August 1743 | 6 March 1754 | |||
Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne | House of Lords | The Duke of Newcastle | 16 March 1754 | 11 November 1756 | |||
Duke of Devonshire | House of Lords | The Duke of Devonshire | 16 November 1756 | 29 June 1757 | |||
Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne | House of Lords | The Duke of Newcastle | 29 June 1757 | 26 May 1762 | |||
Representative Peer | House of Lords | The Earl of Bute | 26 May 1762 | 8 April 1763 | [note 1] | ||
Buckingham | Buckinghamshire | George Grenville | 16 April 1763 | 10 July 1765 | |||
Marquess of Rockingham | House of Lords | The Marquess of Rockingham | 13 July 1765 | 30 July 1766 | |||
Bath | Somerset | William Pitt the Elder | 30 July 1766 | 4 August 1766 | Pitt "kissed hands" as a commoner on 30 July 1766. He chose to become Lord Privy Seal, and was created Earl of Chatham on 4 August 1766. | ||
Earl of Chatham | House of Lords | The Earl of Chatham | 4 August 1766 | 14 October 1768 | See previous entry. | ||
Duke of Grafton | House of Lords | The Duke of Grafton | 14 October 1768 | 28 January 1770 | |||
Banbury | Oxfordshire | Lord North | 28 January 1770 | 27 March 1782 | |||
Marquess of Rockingham | House of Lords | The Marquess of Rockingham | 27 March 1782 | 1 July 1782 | |||
Baron Wycombe | House of Lords | The Earl of Shelburne | 4 July 1782 | 26 March 1783 | [note 2] | ||
Duke of Portland | House of Lords | The Duke of Portland | 2 April 1783 | 18 December 1783 | |||
Appleby | Westmorland | William Pitt the Younger | 19 December 1783 | 3 April 1784 | |||
Cambridge University | Cambridgeshire | 3 April 1784 | 14 March 1801 | Chose to stand for different constituency | |||
Devizes | Wiltshire | Henry Addington | 17 March 1801 | 10 May 1804 | |||
Cambridge University | Cambridgeshire | William Pitt the Younger | 10 May 1804 | 23 January 1806 | |||
Baron Grenville | House of Lords | The Lord Grenville | 11 February 1806 | 25 March 1807 | |||
Duke of Portland | House of Lords | The Duke of Portland | 31 March 1807 | 4 October 1809 | |||
Northampton | Northamptonshire | Spencer Perceval | 4 October 1809 | 11 May 1812 | Perceval was shot and killed in the lobby of the House of Commons. He is the only British prime minister to have been assassinated. | ||
Earl of Liverpool | House of Lords | The Earl of Liverpool | 8 June 1812 | 9 April 1827 | |||
Seaford | Sussex | George Canning | 20 April 1827 | 8 August 1827 | Chose to stand for different constituency | ||
Viscount Goderich | House of Lords | The Viscount Goderich | 31 August 1827 | 8 January 1828 | |||
Duke of Wellington | House of Lords | The Duke of Wellington | 22 January 1828 | 16 November 1830 | |||
Earl Grey | House of Lords | The Earl Grey | 22 November 1830 | 9 July 1834 | |||
Baron Melbourne | House of Lords | The Viscount Melbourne | 16 July 1834 | 14 November 1834 | [note 2] | ||
Duke of Wellington | House of Lords | The Duke of Wellington | 17 November 1834 | 9 December 1834 | |||
Tamworth | Staffordshire | Sir Robert Peel, Bt. | 10 December 1834 | 8 April 1835 | |||
Baron Melbourne | House of Lords | The Viscount Melbourne | 18 April 1835 | 30 August 1841 | [note 2] | ||
Tamworth | Staffordshire | Sir Robert Peel, Bt. | 30 August 1841 | 29 June 1846 | |||
City of London | City of London | Lord John Russell | 30 June 1846 | 21 February 1852 | Later created Earl Russell on 27 July 1861 | ||
Earl of Derby | House of Lords | The Earl of Derby | 23 February 1852 | 17 December 1852 | |||
Viscount Gordon | House of Lords | The Earl of Aberdeen | 19 December 1852 | 30 January 1855 | [note 1] | ||
Tiverton | Devon | The Viscount Palmerston | 6 February 1855 | 19 February 1858 | |||
Earl of Derby | House of Lords | The Earl of Derby | 20 February 1858 | 11 June 1859 | |||
Tiverton | Devon | The Viscount Palmerston | 12 June 1859 | 18 October 1865 | |||
Earl Russell | House of Lords | The Earl Russell | 29 October 1865 | 26 June 1866 | Previously Lord John Russell. | ||
Earl of Derby | House of Lords | The Earl of Derby | 28 June 1866 | 25 February 1868 | |||
Buckinghamshire | Buckinghamshire | Benjamin Disraeli | 27 February 1868 | 1 December 1868 | |||
Greenwich | Kent | William Ewart Gladstone | 3 December 1868 | 17 February 1874 | |||
Buckinghamshire | Buckinghamshire | Benjamin Disraeli | 20 February 1874 | 21 August 1876 | Created Earl of Beaconsfield on 21 August 1876 | ||
Earl of Beaconsfield | House of Lords | The Earl of Beaconsfield | 21 August 1876 | 21 April 1880 | See previous entry. | ||
Midlothian | Edinburgh | William Ewart Gladstone | 23 April 1880 | 9 June 1885 | |||
Marquess of Salisbury | House of Lords | The Marquess of Salisbury | 23 June 1885 | 28 January 1886 | |||
Midlothian | Edinburgh | William Ewart Gladstone | 1 February 1886 | 20 July 1886 | |||
Marquess of Salisbury | House of Lords | The Marquess of Salisbury | 25 July 1886 | 11 August 1892 | |||
Midlothian | Edinburgh | William Ewart Gladstone | 15 August 1892 | 2 March 1894 | |||
Baron Rosebery | House of Lords | The Earl of Rosebery | 5 March 1894 | 22 June 1895 | [note 1] | ||
Marquess of Salisbury | House of Lords | The Marquess of Salisbury | 25 June 1895 | 11 July 1902 | |||
Manchester East | Lancashire | Arthur Balfour | 12 July 1902 | 4 December 1905 | |||
Stirling Burghs | Stirlingshire | Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman | 5 December 1905 | 5 April 1908 | |||
Perthshire | |||||||
Fife | |||||||
Linlithgowshire | |||||||
Fife East | Fife | H. H. Asquith | 5 April 1908 | 5 December 1916 | |||
Caernarvon Boroughs | Caernarfon | David Lloyd George | 6 December 1916 | 19 October 1922 | |||
Glasgow Central | Glasgow | Bonar Law | 23 October 1922 | 20 May 1923 | |||
Bewdley | Worcestershire | Stanley Baldwin | 22 May 1923 | 22 January 1924 | |||
Aberavon | Glamorgan | Ramsay MacDonald | 22 January 1924 | 4 November 1924 | |||
Bewdley | Worcestershire | Stanley Baldwin | 4 November 1924 | 4 June 1929 | |||
Seaham | County Durham | Ramsay MacDonald | 5 June 1929 | 7 June 1935 | |||
Bewdley | Worcestershire | Stanley Baldwin | 7 June 1935 | 28 May 1937 | |||
Birmingham Edgbaston | Warwickshire | Neville Chamberlain | 28 May 1937 | 10 May 1940 | |||
Epping | Essex | Winston Churchill | 10 May 1940 | 5 July 1945 | Constituency abolished effective with 1945 general election | ||
Woodford | Essex | 5 July 1945 | 26 July 1945 | ||||
Limehouse | County of London | Clement Attlee | 26 July 1945 | 23 February 1950 | Constituency abolished effective with 1950 general election | ||
Walthamstow West | Essex | 23 February 1950 | 26 October 1951 | ||||
Woodford | Essex | Sir Winston Churchill | 26 October 1951 | 5 April 1955 | |||
Warwick and Leamington | Warwickshire | Sir Anthony Eden | 6 April 1955 | 9 January 1957 | |||
Bromley | Kent | Harold Macmillan | 10 January 1957 | 18 October 1963 | |||
Earl of Home | House of Lords | The Earl of Home | 19 October 1963 | 22 October 1963 | Douglas-Home was the Earl of Home when he became prime minister and renounced his peerage four days later to stand for the House of Commons. | ||
Prime minister outside Parliament | Sir Alec Douglas-Home | 23 October 1963 | 7 November 1963 | Douglas-Home was in neither House of Parliament and during an active parliament, briefly for twenty days. He was elected in by-election on 8 November 1963, but did not take his seat until 12 November. | |||
Kinross and Western Perthshire | Kinross-shire | 8 November 1963 | 16 October 1964 | ||||
Perthshire | |||||||
Huyton | Lancashire | Harold Wilson | 16 October 1964 | 19 June 1970 | |||
Bexley | Greater London | Edward Heath | 19 June 1970 | 28 February 1974 | Constituency abolished effective with February 1974 general election | ||
Sidcup | Greater London | 28 February 1974 | 4 March 1974 | Heath was elected for Sidcup and did not resign as prime minister for several days while he attempted to form a coalition. | |||
Huyton | Merseyside | Harold Wilson | 4 March 1974 | 5 April 1976 | |||
Cardiff South East | South Glamorgan | James Callaghan | 5 April 1976 | 4 May 1979 | |||
Finchley | Greater London | Margaret Thatcher | 4 May 1979 | 28 November 1990 | |||
Huntingdon | Cambridgeshire | John Major | 28 November 1990 | 2 May 1997 | |||
Sedgefield | County Durham | Tony Blair | 2 May 1997 | 27 June 2007 | |||
Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath | Fife | Gordon Brown | 27 June 2007 | 11 May 2010 | |||
Witney | Oxfordshire | David Cameron | 11 May 2010 | 13 July 2016 | |||
Maidenhead | Berkshire | Theresa May | 13 July 2016 | 24 July 2019 | |||
Uxbridge and South Ruislip | Greater London | Boris Johnson | 24 July 2019 | 6 September 2022 | Had previously served as MP for Henley | ||
South West Norfolk | Norfolk | Liz Truss | 6 September 2022 | 25 October 2022 | |||
Richmond (Yorks) | North Yorkshire | Rishi Sunak | 25 October 2022 | 4 July 2024 | Constituency abolished effective with 2024 general election | ||
Richmond and Northallerton | 4 July 2024 | 5 July 2024 | Sunak was elected for Richmond and Northallerton and resigned as prime minister the next day. | ||||
Holborn and St Pancras | Greater London | Sir Keir Starmer | 5 July 2024 | Incumbent |
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the lower house, the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. One of the oldest institutions in the world, its origins lie in the early 11th century and the emergence of bicameralism in the 13th century.
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs), who are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster in London. Parliament possesses legislative supremacy and thereby holds ultimate power over all other political bodies in the United Kingdom and the Overseas Territories. While Parliament is bicameral, it has three parts: the sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. The three parts acting together to legislate may be described as the King-in-Parliament. The Crown normally acts on the advice of the prime minister, and the powers of the House of Lords are limited to only delaying legislation.
Peerages in the United Kingdom form a legal system comprising both hereditary and lifetime titles, composed of various ranks, and within the framework of the Constitution of the United Kingdom form a constituent part of the legislative process and the British honours system. The British monarch is considered the fount of honour and is notionally the only person who can grant peerages, though there are many conventions about how this power is used, especially at the request of the British government. The term peerage can be used both collectively to refer to the entire body of titled nobility, and individually to refer to a specific title. British peerage title holders are termed peers of the Realm.
The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisions of Peerages in the United Kingdom. The creation of such titles came to an end in the 19th century. The ranks of the Irish peerage are duke, marquess, earl, viscount and baron. As of 2016, there were 135 titles in the Peerage of Ireland extant: two dukedoms, ten marquessates, 43 earldoms, 28 viscountcies, and 52 baronies. However, these titles have no official recognition in Ireland, with Article 40.2 of the Constitution of Ireland forbidding the state conferring titles of nobility and stating that an Irish citizen may not accept titles of nobility or honour except with the prior approval of the Irish government.
The Peerage Act 1963 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permits female hereditary peers and all Scottish hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords and allows newly inherited hereditary peerages to be disclaimed.
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The Peerage of Great Britain comprises all extant peerages created in the Kingdom of Great Britain between the Acts of Union 1707 and the Acts of Union 1800. It replaced the Peerage of England and the Peerage of Scotland, but was itself replaced by the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1801.
The Peerage of the United Kingdom is one of the five Peerages in the United Kingdom. It comprises most peerages created in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland after the Acts of Union in 1801, when it replaced the Peerage of Great Britain. New peers continued to be created in the Peerage of Ireland until 1898
In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives. All peers who were created after 1707 as Peers of Great Britain and after 1801 as Peers of the United Kingdom held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.
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The hereditary peers form part of the peerage in the United Kingdom. As of August 2023, there are 805 hereditary peers: 30 dukes, 34 marquesses, 189 earls, 110 viscounts, and 442 barons.
The history of the British peerage, a system of nobility found in the United Kingdom, stretches over the last thousand years. The current form of the British peerage has been a process of development. While the ranks of baron and earl predate the British peerage itself, the ranks of duke and marquess were introduced to England in the 14th century. The rank of viscount came later, in the mid-15th century. Peers were summoned to Parliament, forming the House of Lords.
The British peerage is governed by a body of law that has developed over several centuries. Much of this law has been established by a few important cases, and some of the more significant of these are addressed in this article.
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. Life peers are appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister. With the exception of the Dukedom of Edinburgh awarded for life to Prince Edward in 2023, all life peerages conferred since 2009 have been created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 with the rank of baron and entitle their holders to sit and vote in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as age and citizenship. The legitimate children of a life peer appointed under the Life Peerages Act 1958 are entitled to style themselves with the prefix "The Honourable", although they cannot inherit the peerage itself. Prior to 2009, life peers of baronial rank could also be so created under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 for senior judges.
The Lords Temporal are secular members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament. These can be either life peers or hereditary peers, although the hereditary right to sit in the House of Lords was abolished for all but ninety-two peers during the 1999 reform of the House of Lords. The term is used to differentiate these members from the Lords Spiritual, who sit in the House as a consequence of being bishops in the Church of England.
Since 1997 the United Kingdom government has been engaged in reforming the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The history of reform before 1997, is set out in sections below about reforms of composition and powers carried out in the past and of unsuccessful proposals and attempts at reform in the twentieth century. Proposals include decreasing the number of lords, introducing a system where lords are democratically elected, or abolition of the House of Lords in favour of a unicameral Parliament.