Newport, Isle of Wight

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Newport, Isle of Wight. View down High Street, with Guildhall central.

Newport is the county town and nominal capital of the Isle of Wight, an island in the Solent off the south coast of England. Newport has a population of around 25,000. The town is situated slightly to the north of the centre of the island, at the head of the navigable section of the River Medina, which flows northward to the Solent, and on which the town has a quay.

History

Although there are traces of Roman settlement in the area, probably known as Medina, there was little later use until after the Norman conquest with the first charter being granted late in the twelfth century. In 1377 an invading French force burnt down much of the town while attempting to take Carisbrooke Castle, then under the command of Sir Hugh Tyrill. A group of French were captured and killed, then buried in a tumulus later nicknamed Noddies Hill, a "noddy" being medieval slang for a body. This was later corrupted to Nodehill, a name confusing to many as the area is flat.

The town was incorporated as a borough in 1608. The town's position as an area of trade accessible to the sea meant it rapidly took over from Carisbrooke as the main central settlement, eventually absorbing the latter as a suburb. The borough ceased to exist in 1974 after the incorporation of the larger Borough of Medina, which was itself superseded in 1995 by a single unitary authority covering the whole of the Isle of Wight.

Prisons

The town's suburb of Parkhurst is home to three prisons: the notorious Parkhurst Prison itself, Camp Hill, and Albany. Parkhurst and Albany were once amongst the few top-security prisons in the United Kingdom.

Amenities

Seaclose Park in Newport, located on the east bank of the River Medina, has since 2002 become the location for the revived Isle of Wight Music Festival, which is held annually.

Parliamentary representation

From the middle ages the Parliamentary Borough of Newport had two seats in the House of Commons, and between 1807 and 1811 they were held by two future Prime Ministers: Arthur Wellesley, later to become the Duke of Wellington (who also found himself elected to two other seats at the same time), and Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston who would go on to become one of the United Kingdom's most notable Prime Ministers. The failure of Palmerston's late father to convert his Irish title into a United Kingdom peerage made entering the Commons possible for the young politician. The local patron arranging the deal was Sir Leonard Holmes, who made it a condition that they never visited the borough!

The borough was also represented by two other future Prime Ministers in the 1820s. George Canning was MP for Newport when appointed Prime Minister in 1827; however, under the law as it then stood a minister accepting office automatically vacated his seat and had to stand for re-election to the Commons, and Canning chose to stand at Seaford, a government pocket borough in Sussex, rather than fight Newport again. But in the by-election that followed at Newport, the vacancy was filled by the election of the Honourable William Lamb, later 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose father had also represented the borough in the 1790s. However, Lamb remained MP for Newport for only two weeks before also being elected for Bletchingley, which he preferred to represent.

Newport's representation in Parliament was cut to one seat in 1867, and it was abolished altogether as a separate constituency in 1885. It now forms a part of the Isle of Wight constituency.

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Newport elected two members to the
Unreformed House of Commons