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1796 British general election

Election in Great Britain

Field	Value
country	Kingdom of Great Britain
type	parliamentary
ongoing	no
previous_election	1790 British general election
previous_year	1790
previous_mps	List of MPs elected in the British general election, 1790
next_election	1802 United Kingdom general election
next_year	1802 (UK)
seats_for_election	All 558 seats in the House of Commons
majority_seats	280
elected_mps	List of MPs elected in the British general election, 1796
election_date
<!-- Administration -->	image_size	160x160px
image1	George-Romney-xx-William-Pitt-the-Younger-xx-Tate-Britain.jpg
leader1	William Pitt
leaders_seat1	Cambridge University
party1	Pittite
seats1	424
seat_change1	84
percentage1
image2	Reynolds Charles James Fox.jpg
leader2	Charles James Fox
leaders_seat2	Westminster
party2	Foxite
colour2	F8B878
seats2	95
seat_change2	88
title	Prime Minister
posttitle	Prime Minister after
election
before_election	William Pitt
before_party	Pittite
after_election	William Pitt
after_party	Pittite
map2_image	File:1796 British GE map - Westminster.svg
map2_caption	Composition of the House of Commons after the election

election

The 1796 British general election returned members to serve in the 18th and last House of Commons of the Parliament of Great Britain. They were summoned before the Union of Great Britain and Ireland on 1 January 1801. The members in office in Great Britain at the end of 1800 continued to serve in the first Parliament of the United Kingdom (1801–02).

Political situation

Great Britain had been at war with France since 1793. The Prime Minister since 1783, William Pitt the Younger, led a broad wartime coalition of Whig and Tory politicians.

The principal opposition to Pitt was a relatively weak faction of Whigs, led by Charles James Fox. For four years after 1797 opposition attendance at Westminster was sporadic as Fox pursued a strategy of secession from Parliament. Only a small group, led by George Tierney, had attended frequently to oppose the ministers. As Foord observes "only once did the minority reach seventy-five, and it was often less than ten".

Dates of election

The period between the first and last returns was 25 May to 29 June 1796.

Summary of the constituencies

Note

Key to categories in the following tables: BC – [Borough constituency

[Monmouthshire (One County constituency with two members and one single member Borough constituency) is included in Wales in these tables. Sources for this period may include the county in England.

Table 1: Constituencies and Members, by type and country

Country	BC	CC	UC	Total C	BMP	CMP	UMP	Total Members
England	202	39	2	243	404	78	4	486
	13	13	0	26	13	14	0	27
Scotland	15	30	0	45	15	30	0	45
	230	82	2	314	432	122	4	558

Table 2: Number of seats per constituency, by type and country

Country	BC×1	BC×2	BC×4	CC×1	CC×2	UC×2	Total C
England	4	196	2	0	39	2	243
	13	0	0	12	1	0	26
Scotland	15	0	0	30	0	0	45
	32	196	2	42	40	2	314

Results

Seats summary

References

''His Majesty's Opposition 1714–1830'', by Archibald S. Foord (Oxford University Press 1964)
Footnote to Table 5.02 ''British Electoral Facts 1832–1999'', compiled and edited by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher (Ashgate Publishing Ltd 2000).
''British Historical Facts 1760–1830'', by Chris Cook and John Stevenson (The Macmillan Press 1980).

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1796-elections 1796-in-great-britain elections-to-the-parliament-of-great-britain william-pitt-the-younger

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