Monmouth was first enfranchised (as the borough of Monmouth or Monmouth Town) during the reign of Henry VIII, at the same time as the counties and boroughs of Wales, and although it was legally regarded as being in England its electoral arrangements from the outset resembled those of the Welsh boroughs rather than those in the rest of England - it elected only a single member, and the borough consisted not only of the town after which it was named but also of a number of 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. In the case of Monmouth, there were initially six or perhaps seven contributory boroughs: Caerleon, Newport, Trellech, Usk, Chepstow, Abergavenny and possibly Grosmont; 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 the right to vote was declared to rest in the resident freemen of Monmouth, Newport and Usk. The number of electors seems once to have been substantial but to have fallen away sharply during the 18th century - from 2,000 in 1715 to about 800 in the 1754-1790 period; by the time of the Great Reform Act in 1832, there were only 280 qualified voters - 123 in Newport, 83 in Monmouth and 74 in Usk. In Tudor times the constituency was under the influence of the Duchy of Lancaster and around the start of the 18th century it was a pocket borough of the Morgan family of Tredegar, who were influential in the Newport area; but soon afterwards the Dukes of Beaufort gained control. After the Duke's candidate had won the election of 1715 decisively, this patronage was so clear that there were no further contests until 1820, the Beaufort candidates (many of them members of the family) all being returned unopposed for a hundred years.
At the time of the Great Reform Act the constituency had a population of just over 11,000 (of which Monmouth and Newport each contributed around 5,000 and Usk just over 1,000). This was a relatively large population for a borough constituency at the time - indeed, boroughs which had 2 MPs were generally allowed to keep them both under the Reform Act provided they had a population of 4,000. Nevertheless, all three of the component boroughs were enlarged slightly by including parts of the town outside the old borough, so bringing the combined population of the revised constituency to an estimated 13,101 and its electorate (under the reformed franchise) to 899. From this point onwards, the constituency was generally referred to as the Monmouth Boroughs.
The constituency as it existed 1885-1918 (shown in pink) within Monmouthshire
From 1832 until the end of the 19th century the constituency was generally a marginal one, finely balanced between the Conservatives and Whigs or Liberals when it was contested (although Crawshay Bailey was returned unopposed four times after he was first elected). The constituency moved steadily towards the Liberals, however, as Newport grew in size; by the turn of the century 90% of the electorate was there, and it was a much more working class and industrial town than Monmouth or Usk. The Conservatives won in their landslide year of 1900 and held the seat in the by-election when the original election was declared void for various irregularities, but were probably helped by the association of the Liberal candidate with the campaign to extend the Welsh Sunday Closing Act to Monmouthshire. Otherwise, it was an increasingly safe Liberal seat, and at the time of the 1911 census had a population of 77,902.
The constituency consisted, at least from 1680 onwards, of the towns of Newport, Monmouth and Usk. There were minor boundary changes that redefined the extent of each of these contributory boroughs in 1832 and 1885.
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 the 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 between William Watkins and Thomas 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 the Civil 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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