West Kent (UK Parliament constituency)

West Kent
Former county constituency for the House of Commons
County	Kent
1832–1885
Seats	2
Created from	Kent

West Kent (formally known as "Kent, Western") was a county constituency in Kent in South East England. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

History

The constituency was created by the Reform Act 1832 for the 1832 general election, and abolished by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election.

All three two-member constituencies in Kent were abolished in 1885: East Kent, Mid Kent and West Kent. They were replaced by eight new single-member constituencies: Ashford, Dartford, Faversham, Isle of Thanet, Medway, St Augustine's, Sevenoaks and Tunbridge.

Members of Parliament

Election	1st Member		1st Party	2nd Member		2nd Party
1832	rowspan="3" style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Thomas Law Hodges	Liberal	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Thomas Rider	Liberal
1835	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |			Sir William Geary, Bt	Conservative
1838 by-election	rowspan="5" style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |			Sir Edmund Filmer, Bt	Conservative
1841	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Viscount Marsham	Conservative
1845 by-election	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Thomas Austen	Conservative
1847	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Thomas Law Hodges	Liberal
1852	rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	William Masters Smith	Conservative
Feb 1857 by-election	rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |			Charles Wykeham Martin	Liberal
Apr 1857	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	James Whatman	Liberal
1859	rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Viscount Holmesdale	Conservative	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Sir Edmund Filmer, Bt	Conservative
1865	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |			William Hart Dyke	Conservative
1868	rowspan="2" style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Sir Charles Mills, Bt	Conservative	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	John Gilbert Talbot	Conservative
1878 by-election	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |			Viscount Lewisham	Conservative
1885	constituency abolished

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "K" (part 1)
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 406–407. ISBN 0-900178-26-4.