The East Riding of Yorkshire was a parliamentary constituency covering the East Riding of Yorkshire, omitting Beverley residents save a small minority of Beverley residents who also qualified on property grounds to vote in the county seat (mainly business-owning forty shilling freeholders). It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. A brief earlier guise of the seat covered the changed franchise of the First Protectorate Parliament and Second Protectorate Parliament during a fraction of the twenty years of England and Wales (Scotland and Ireland) existed as a republic.
First and Second Protectorate parliaments existence 1654–1658 The seat existed for the June 1654 to January 1655 parliament and for that following (July 1656 to September 1656). The East Riding electorate summoned four members simultaneously.
+Parliaments of the ProtectorateNo.SummonedElectedAssembledDissolvedSessionsSpeakerNote1st 1 June 1654 1654 3 September 1654 22 January 1655 1 William Lenthall 1st Protectorate Parliament 2nd 10 July 1656 1656 17 September 1656 4 February 1658 2 Thomas Widdrington 2nd Protectorate Parliament Bulstrode Whitelocke 3rd 9 December 1658 1658–59 27 January 1659 22 April 1659 1 Chaloner Chute 3rd Protectorate Parliament Lislebone Long (Deputy) Thomas Bampfylde
Creation and abolition The constituency was created by the Reform Act 1832 as the four-seat Yorkshire was divided in three, two-seat divisions for the 1832 general election. The divisions were abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885. It was replaced for the 1885 general election by single-member seats: Buckrose, Holderness and Howdenshire.
Results Candidates were elected unopposed at most of the elections throughout its existence; contested elections took place in 1837, 1868 and 1880. In these contests two Conservative candidates defeated a single Whig or Liberal.
Members of Parliament MPs 1654–1658 (Protectorate Parliaments) ElectionFirst memberSecond memberThird memberFourth member 1654 Sir William StricklandHugh BethellRichard RobinsonWalter Strickland 1656 Robert LilburneGeorge Eure, 7th Baron EureRichard DarleyHugh Darley
MPs 1832–1885 Election1st member1st party2nd member2nd party1832 constituency created by division of the Yorkshire constituency 1832 Richard Bethell Tory Paul Thompson Whig 1834 Conservative 1837 Henry Broadley Conservative 1841 The Lord Hotham Conservative 1851 by-election Hon. Arthur Duncombe Conservative 1868 Christopher Sykes Conservative William Harrison-Broadley Conservative1885 constituency abolished: see Buckrose, Holderness and Howdenshire
Election results Elections in the 1830s
Elections in the 1840s
Elections in the 1850s Broadley's death caused a by-election.
Duncombe was appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Admiralty, requiring a by-election.
Elections in the 1860s
Elections in the 1870s
Elections in the 1880s
References