Mid Surrey was a

county constituency In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by electoral districts called " constituen ...

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

: 1868 — 1885. It returned two Members of Parliament to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

of the

UK Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of ...

elected by the bloc vote system.

History

The constituency was created under the

Second Reform Act The Representation of the People Act 1867 ( 30 & 31 Vict. c. 102), known as the Reform Act 1867 or the Second Reform Act, is an act of the British Parliament that enfranchised part of the urban male working class in England and Wales for the f ...

for the 1868 general election, and abolished by the

Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 23) was an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (sometimes called the "Reform Act of 1885"). It was a piece of electoral reform legislation that r ...

for the 1885 general election. ;Political history The seat elected a brief series of Conservatives. ;Successor seats The 1885 Act took from 2 to 16 the metropolitan seats in the north-east of the county — that is the zone north-east of Wimbledon and Croydon coming from 1889 into the newly formed

County of London The County of London was a county of England from 1889 to 1965, corresponding to the area known today as Inner London. It was created as part of the general introduction of elected county government in England, by way of the Local Government A ...

. It also founded six single-member ''county'' constituencies (seats) to cover the rump bulk of the county, commonly referred to at the time as the non-metropolitan county. The Act thus abolished the

West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...

, Mid and

East Surrey East Surrey is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Claire Coutinho, a Conservative who formerly served as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The seat covers an affluent area in t ...

divisions double seat-areas that comprised the county. As Surrey was now split into single-representative areas this met a Chartist objective, discouraging the frequent collusion between candidates or parties which had beset multi-member constituencies (specifically plurality-at-large voting, for which "bloc(k) vote" in Britain was the term used). These six distinctly county (non-metropolitan) divisions the Act numbered, named (and detailed as summarised in outline below): #The North-Western or Chertsey Division (usually recorded as Chertsey, Surrey N.W. or North-West) - included Woking and Egham #The South-Western or Guildford Division (as style shown above) - included Godalming, Farnham and surrounds #The South-Eastern or Reigate Division (as style shown above) - included Dorking sessional division save for two parishes in No. 4. #The Mid or Epsom Division (as style shown above) - included Kingston's southern and eastern sessional division components #The

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

Division (invariably Kingston or Kingston-upon-Thames) - included Richmond #The North-Eastern or Wimbledon Division (as style shown above) - included sessional division of Croydon except its core and north in the Metropolis; plus Caterham, Chelsham, Farley, Warlingham.

Boundaries

1868–1885: The Hundreds of Kingston, Reigate and so much of that of Wallington as lay to the west of the parishes of Croydon and Sanderstead, and so much of the Hundred of Brixton as lay to the west of the parishes of Streatham, Clapham and Lambeth.

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 1860s

Elections in the 1870s

Brodrick succeeded to the peerage, becoming Viscount Midleton and causing a by-election. Baggallay was appointed

Solicitor-General for England and Wales His Majesty's Solicitor General for England and Wales, known informally as the Solicitor General, is one of the law officers of the Crown in the government of the United Kingdom. They are the deputy of the Attorney General, whose duty is to adv ...

, requiring a by-election. Baggallay was appointed a Judge of The Court of Appeal, and resigned.

Elections in the 1880s

Peek's resignation caused a by-election.

References

*{{Rayment-hc, s, 6, date=March 2012 Parliamentary constituencies in Surrey (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1868 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1885 Politics of the London Borough of Lambeth