In May 2023, the incumbent Chippenham MP,Michelle Donelan, announced she would be standing for the newMelksham and Devizes constituency.[3] In July 2023, the local Conservative Association announced that their candidate for the new Chippenham constituency would be a local unitary councillor, Nic Puntis.[4]
Aparliamentary borough of Chippenham was enfranchised in 1295. It sent twoburgesses to Parliament until 1868 and one thereafter until the borough constituency was abolished in 1885. There was acounty division constituency named after the town ofChippenham from 1885 to 1983, when the name of that constituency was changed toNorth Wiltshire.
Following the2003–2005 review into parliamentary representation in Wiltshire, theBoundary Commission created a new county constituency, reviving the name of Chippenham, effective from the 2010 general election. It was formed from parts of the previously existingDevizes,North Wiltshire andWestbury constituencies. Further boundary changes came into effect at the 2024 general election.
Chippenham is the largest town in rural North Wiltshire and in the new constituency.
1295–1832: Theparliamentary borough ofChippenham in the unreformed Parliament consisted of only part of the parish ofChippenham inWiltshire. However, as Chippenham was aburgage borough, in which the right to vote was confined to the resident occupiers of specific properties, the boundary had no practical function. The borough had a population of 1,620 in 1831, for 283 houses.
1832–1885: The Boundary Act which accompanied theGreat Reform Act extended the boundaries of the parliamentary borough, to include the whole of Chippenham parish, the adjoining parishes ofHardenhuish andLangley Burrell, as well as the extra-parochial district ofPewsham. This more than trebled the borough's population, to 5,270 by the 1831 figures, for 883 houses.
1885–1918: During this period, Wiltshire was split into five county divisions and one borough, of whichThe North-Western (or Chippenham) Division of Wiltshire was one; it was often colloquially referred to simply as either Chippenham or as North-West Wiltshire. It was bordered by theCricklade division to the east,Westbury to the south andDevizes to the southeast. Over the county boundary werethe Thornbury division of Gloucestershire to the west,the Cirencester division of Gloucestershire to the north andthe Frome division of Somerset to the southwest.
The Chippenham division included the towns ofCalne andMalmesbury as well as Chippenham, both of which had also been parliamentary boroughs in their own right before 1885. By the outbreak of World War I, the population of the constituency was about 45,000.
1950–1983: In the redistribution which took effect at the1950 general election, Wiltshire was divided into one borough and four county constituencies.Chippenham County Constituency consisted of the same Municipal Boroughs as in 1918 and the Rural Districts of Calne and Chippenham, Cricklade and Wootton Bassett, and Malmesbury.
The constituency was re-established as a result of increasing the number of seats in Wiltshire from six to seven. Chippenham and Corsham were transferred from North Wiltshire; Melksham from Devizes; and Bradford-on-Avon from Westbury.
A petition was lodged in relation to the December 1910 election, but this was later withdrawn after a recount, resulting in the above numbers. The original count had placed the Conservatives with 4,139 votes and the Liberals with 4,113 votes.
^Brooke was initially declared elected in 1802, but on petition he was found not to have been duly elected and his opponent, Maitland, was declared elected in his place
^Foster, Bernard John (1966). "ISLINGTON, Sir John Poynder Dickson-Poynder". InMcLintock, A. H. (ed.).Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Ministry for Culture and Heritage / Te Manatū Taonga.Archived from the original on 21 October 2012. Retrieved30 March 2017.
