The Sessional Divisions of Hinckford South (Braintree Bench) and Witham; and
Parts of the Sessional Divisions of Hinckford South (Halstead Bench), Lexden, and Winstree.[5]
Formally known as the Eastern or Maldon Division of Essex, incorporating the abolished Parliamentary Borough ofMaldon and extending northwards to include the towns ofWitham,Braintree andHalstead.
The Urban Districts of Braintree, Burnham-on-Crouch, and Witham;
The Rural District of Maldon; and
The Rural District of Braintree (including the detached part of the parish of Inworth which was wholly surrounded by the parishes of Great Braxted and Kelvedon).[6]
As above but the part of the Rural District of Braintree was altered by the County of Essex (Braintree and Lexden and Winstree Rural Districts) Confirmation Order 1955.[7]
Marginal changes as a result of changes to local authority boundaries.
Major reconfiguration, as Braintree and Bocking, and Witham, together with the parts of the Rural District of Braintree, formed the basis for the new constituency ofBraintree. The Rural District ofRochford was transferred fromSouth East Essex.
Constituency abolished for the1983 general election. Southern area, comprising the former Rural District of Rochford, included in the new constituency ofRochford. Remainder formed the majority of the new constituency ofSouth Colchester and Maldon.
The District of Maldon wards of Althorne, Burnham-on-Crouch North, Burnham-on-Crouch South, Heybridge East, Heybridge West, Maldon East, Maldon North, Maldon South, Maldon West, Mayland, Purleigh, Southminster, and Tillingham; and
The Borough of Chelmsford wards of Bicknacre and East and West Hanningfield, Little Baddow, Danbury and Sandon,Rettendon and Runwell, South Hanningfield, Stock and Margaretting, South Woodham Chetwood and Collingwood, and South Woodham Elmwood and Woodville.[9]
Maldon was originally aparliamentary borough inEssex, first represented in theHouse of Commons in 1332; it elected two MPs until 1868, and one from 1868 until 1885. In that year the borough was abolished but the name was transferred to acounty division of Essex, which continued with some boundary changes until 1983.
Until theGreat Reform Act 1832, the borough consisted of the three parishes of the town ofMaldon, a small market town and port on the coast ofEssex.
Maldon had been a municipal as well as a parliamentary borough. Its first charter dated from the reign ofHenry II, and at one time the corporation had the sole right to elect the town's MPs. From 1701 at the latest, however, the right to vote was exercised by thefreemen of the town, whether or not resident within the borough; and, unusually, honorary freemen and those acquiring the freedom by purchase were also entitled to vote in Maldon. This had several consequences. The electorate in Maldon was much bigger than was usual in a town of that size — in the first half of the 18th century, the number of qualified voters was generally about 800 (the majority of whom did not live in Maldon). It also meant that the town corporation, with the power to create freemen and therefore voters, was in a position to gerrymander elections if it so wished. This might, as was the case in some other boroughs, have ended in one interest gaining control of the corporation and turning Maldon into apocket borough; in fact, however, Maldon instead stayed independent but venal, and gaining election there tended to be an expensive business. Sometimes it was not merely a case of bribing the voters: in 1690, it was recorded in the House of Commons journals that the wives and daughters of Maldon freemen were being bribed at election time as well.
One interest that was firmly established by the middle of the 18th century, however, was that of the government, which ensured that lucrative posts in the customs house were reserved for loyally-voting freemen, and also attempted to have government supporters – often strangers to the town – elected to vacancies on the corporation. It was generally taken for granted that the government candidates would normally be elected.
However, in the 1750s the government's control of Maldon weakened, and a prominent localTory,John Strutt, found he had enough influence with the voters to sway elections. He secured the election of several of his friends over the years and eventually, in 1774, successfully stood for election himself.
In the meanwhile, however, there was a dramatic change in the system. In 1763 one of the sitting MPs, Strutt's friendBamber Gascoyne, was appointed to theBoard of Trade and therefore had to stand for re-election at Maldon. Gascoyne's opponent,John Huske, accused him of threatening that any freemen working in the customs house who did not vote for him would be dismissed (which, by that time, would have been an illegal threat).[11] Although the Prime Minister,George Grenville, denied having authorised Gascoyne to make any such threat and Gascoyne denied having made it, it seems clear it was believed in Maldon and the corporation sided with Huske, creating enough new freemen to ensure Gascoyne was defeated. Both sides started actions for bribery, but Gascoyne had decided on more drastic action. He took out a writ against the corporation, and the Courts ordered the ousting of the majority of members; eventually, in 1768, the corporation was dissolved by judicial order.
For half a century the duties of returning officer were transferred to theHigh Sheriff of Essex. However, the Sheriff could not assume the corporation's function of swearing in new freemen, and Strutt's influence was thus entirely secured against any possibility of new voters being created to outvote him. However, there was a problem: by the time of thegeneral election of 1807 the number of remaining qualified voters had dwindled to 58, and the constituency was in imminent danger of quite literally dying out. Yet there were more than 800 new freemen who were only barred from voting because there was nobody to swear them in. Finally a new charter was granted, in time to enfranchise them for the election of 1810.
Matters then returned to normal in Maldon for the remaining 22 years before theReform Act 1832. Strutt's son,Joseph Holden Strutt, retained much of the influence that his father had wielded, being generally considered to be able to nominate one of the two MPs or to choose to sit himself; as he exercised all government patronage in Maldon, he was well-placed to secure the other seat as well. But when the voters proved uncooperative, they could easily enough be overruled: at the1826 election, the Corporation secured the result it wanted by admitting another thousand new freemen in time for them to vote: 3,113 freemen voted, of whom only 251 were Maldon residents.
In the initial drafts of the Reform Bill, Maldon was to lose one of its two seats. It was eventually spared this fate, but its population of 3,831 in 1831 left it very close to the borderline. The eventual Reform Act 1832 extended the borough by adding the neighbouring parish ofHeybridge, increasing the population to 4,895; but with only 716 qualified voters under the new franchise its electorate was less than a quarter of what it had previously been. The constituency was a highly marginal one, victory rarely being secured by more than a handful of votes. In 1852, only 40 votes separated first place from fourth, and the second Tory's majority over his Whig opponent was only 6; after the losing candidates petitioned, alleging corruption, the election was declared void[12] and Maldon's right to representation was suspended while aroyal commission investigated. However, no major scandal was uncovered and (unlike some other boroughs similarly investigated at the same period) its right to vote was reinstated and a writ for a new by-election which took place in 1854 was issued.[13]
TheReform Act 1867, implemented in 1868, took seats from most of the smallest boroughs, and Maldon's representation was halved; but it was still too small, and at theelection of 1885 the borough was abolished altogether. Thecounty division into which the town was placed, however, was named after the town. (Officially, until 1918, it was theEastern (or Maldon) Division of Essex; after that, simply theMaldon division.) As well as Maldon itself this contained the towns ofBraintree,Halstead andWitham. Once again this constituency was a marginal one — almost the only rural county seat in the South East at this period not to be safelyConservative. The strength of the Liberal vote seems to have been based partly on the strength ofNonconformism in the Halstead area, but also on trade unionism among the agricultural labourers (which elsewhere in Essex was offset by a strongly Tory maritime vote which Maldon lacked).
Maldon in Essex, 1918–1945
After1918, boundary changes addedBurnham on Crouch and the surrounding district, but the constituency was still a rural one, with 35% of the occupied male population employed in the agricultural sector at the time of the 1921 census. TheLabour Party rather than the Liberals were now the Conservatives' main opponents. When the Liberal Party split in 1922, Maldon's Liberals split as well, and the constituency was the first where theLloyd George Liberals set up a constituency association, though this was apparently without the sanction of the national party headquarters and the association is not recorded as having organised any activities. In1923 no Liberal candidate stood at all, and Labour captured the seat for the first time. The Conservatives retook the seat in1924, holding it until the 1940s, but it was won byTom Driberg in a wartime by-election. Labour held the seat until 1955 when the Conservatives gained it and held on with marginal majorities until the 1970s, when the seat gradually became safe with bigger majorities until its abolition.
Driberg was elected in 1942 as an Independent Labour candidate, but took the Labour Partywhip in January 1945, and stood in the 1945 election as a Labour Party candidate.
The 1852 election was declared void on petition due to bribery and treating,[39] and the writ was suspended in March 1853.[12] A by-election was held in August 1854 to fill the vacancy.
Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;
^Comyns was re-elected in 1715, but his election was declared void because he refused to take the oath that he met the property qualification to be elected. Tufnell, was seated in his place.
^On petition, Gaskell was adjudged not to have been duly elected, and his opponent, Western, was seated in his place.
^Peacocke changed his name to Sandford during the Parliament of 1865.
^abGreat Britain, Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales.The public general acts. unknown library. Proprietors of the Law Journal Reports, 1884.
^abCraig, Fred W. S. (1972).Boundaries of parliamentary constituencies 1885-1972;. Chichester: Political Reference Publications.ISBN0900178094.OCLC539011.
^abHall, Catherine; Draper, Nicholas; McClelland, Keith; Donington, Katie; Lang, Rachel (2014)."Appendix 4: MPs 1832-80 in the compensation records".Legacies of British Slave-ownership: Colonial Slavery and the Formation of Victorian Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 292.ISBN978-1-107-04005-2. Retrieved22 April 2018.
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