The area was first enfranchised as the single-member borough ofMonmouth orMonmouth Town in the reign ofHenry VIII, at the same time as the counties and boroughs of Wales. On official, national-level paper cast as being in England its electoral arrangements from the outset resembled those of the Welsh boroughs rather than those in the rest of England - its single member and its other "contributory boroughs" in the same county, which were required to contribute to the members' expenses and which had the right to send voters to take part in the election at the county town. These were initially six or perhaps seven in number:Caerleon,Newport,Trellech,Usk,Chepstow,Abergavenny and possiblyGrosmont; but by the late 17th century all of the electors were freemen of Monmouth, Usk and Newport.
The franchise was settled by a judgment in a disputed election in 1680, when Monmouth attempted to return a member to parliament without the involvement of the other boroughs, and theCourt declared the right to vote to rest in the residentfreemen of Monmouth, Newport and Usk. The number of electors fell away sharply during the 18th century - from 2,000 in 1715 to about 800 in the 1754-1790 period; by the time of theGreat Reform Act in 1832 qualified voters numbered: 123 in Newport, 83 in Monmouth and 74 in Usk. InTudor times the seat was under the influence of theDuchy of Lancaster and around the start of the 18th century it was apocket borough of the Morgan family ofTredegar, who were influential in the Newport area; but soon afterwards theDukes of Beaufort (a Scudamore family branch) gained control. After theDuke's candidate had won the election of1715 decisively, this patronage was so clear contests ceased until 1820 – their candidates (many of them members of the family) were returned unopposed.
At the time of theGreat Reform Act (or First Reform Act), 1832, Monmouth and Newport each had around 5,000 residents and Usk just over 1,000. This was great for most seats of its type – even dual-member boroughs were mostly kept if they had or could be simply drawn to exceed 4,000 residents. Nevertheless, all three parts of this seat were expanding by taking into the new high-rent-paying and/or landed outlook (franchise) a broad view of each town; such area took in 13,101 people and its electorate (under the "reformed" franchise) was 899. Henceforth it was generally referred to as theMonmouth Boroughs.
The constituency as it existed 1885-1918 (shown in pink) within Monmouthshire
From 1832 until 1906 results tended on 'marginal' rather than 'safe', alternating betweenConservatives andWhigs/Liberals.Crawshay Bailey (Con.) was returned unopposed four times after he was first elected. The seat moved steadily towards the Liberals, however, as the franchise became more inclusive and Newport grew in size; by the turn of the century 90% of the electorate was there, and it was a mass-labour working class and mainly industrial town unlike Monmouth and Usk. The Conservatives won in their landslide year of1900 and held the seat in the by-election when that election was voided for various irregularities, but were probably helped by the association of the Liberal candidate with the campaign to extend theWelsh Sunday Closing Act to Monmouthshire. After, it was identifiably "safely" Liberal, and at the time of the 1911 census had a population of 77,902.
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;
^Jones was also elected for Beaumaris, but had not chosen his seat before parliament was dissolved
^The election of November 1640 was disputed betweenWilliam Watkins andThomas Trevor. Watkins took his seat at the very beginning of the Parliament, but was then instructed to cease attending until the dispute had been resolved; in fact this had not happened by the time of the outbreak of theCivil War, and proceedings were then put in abeyance and neither ever gained the seat. Watkins was disabled from sitting for his adherence to the Royalist cause while Trevor was elected for another constituency, and a writ to fill the vacant seat was eventually issued in 1646.
^On petition, Herbert was declared not to have been duly elected, having been returned only by the freemen of Monmouth, and his opponent Arnold (who had the majority once the votes of Newport and Usk were included) was declared elected in his place
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