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Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1983 and from 1997 onwards

Bedford '/b//ɛ//d//f//ər//d/// is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2017 by Mohammad Yasin of the Labour Party. The seat dates back to the earliest century of regular parliaments, in 1295; its double representation was halved in 1885, then altered by the Representation of the People Act in 1918. It was abolished in 1983 but re established at the next periodic review for the 1997 general election.

Bedford was first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295. The constituency was originally a parliamentary borough electing two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons, and consisted of the five parishes making up the town of Bedford. Before the Reform Act of 1832, the right to vote was exercised by all freemen and burgesses of the town (whether or not they lived within the borough boundaries) and by all householders who were not receiving alms. This was a fairly wide franchise for the period, but potentially subject to abuse since the Corporation of the borough had unlimited power to create freemen. The corporation was usually under the influence of the Dukes of Bedford, but their influence usually fell well short of making Bedford a pocket borough. In 1768, a majority of the corporation apparently fell out with the Duke at the time, and decided to free the borough from his influence. They elected a Huntingdonshire squire, Sir Robert Bernard, as Recorder of the borough, and made 500 new freemen, mostly Bernard's Huntingdonshire neighbours or tenants. As there were only 540 householders, this gave him the effective power to choose Bedford's MPs; at the next election the defeated candidates petitioned against the result, attempting to establish that so many non residents should not be allowed to vote, but the Commons dismissed the petition and confirmed the right of all the freemen, however created, to vote. Bernard cemented his control with the creation of hundreds of further freemen in the next few years; at around the same period he lent the Corporation £950, and it is not unreasonable to assume this was payment for services rendered. However, in 1789, the young Duke of Bedford managed to regain the corporation's loyalty, and had 350 of his own retainers made freemen. Even at other periods, the influence of the Dukes seems sometimes to have been more nominal than real. In the 1750s and 1760s, before Bernard's intervention, a frequent compromise was that the Duke nominated one MP and the corporation (representing the interests of the town) the other; but it seems that on occasion the Duke had to be flexible to retain the semblance of local deference towards him, and that his "nominee" had in reality been imposed upon him. Nor was the outcome invariably successfully predetermined: at the 1830 election the result swung on one individual's vote – the defeated candidate being Lord John Russell, who was not only one of the Whig leaders but The Duke of Bedford's son. In 1831, the population of the borough was 6,959, and contained 1,491 houses. This was sufficient for Bedford to retain both its MPs under the Great Reform Act, with its boundaries unaltered. The reformed franchise introduced in 1832 gave the borough 1,572 inhabitants qualified to vote.

The Municipal Borough of Bedford.

The Borough of Bedford wards of Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kempston East, Kempston North, Kempston South, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe, Queens Park. Marginal changes due to the revision of local authority wards.

No. SummonedElectedAssembledDissolved1st member2nd member29th 30 September 1295+ 1295 27 November 1295 4 December 1295 John Cullebere Simon de Holand30th 26 August 1296 1296 3 November 1296 29 November 1296 unknown unknown33rd 6 October 1297 1297 15 September 1297 14 October 1297 unknown unknown34th 15 March 1298 March 1298 30 March 1298 unknown unknown35th 10 April 1298 1298 25 May 1298 Thomas Halyday Robert de Sywell 39th 29 December 1299 1299–00 6 March 1300 20 March 1300 John Wymond William Benne40th 26 September 1300 1300–01 20 January 1301 30 January 130142nd 14 July 1302 1302 14 October 1302 21 October 1302 Simon le Tanner Robert de Sywell43rd 12 November 1304 1304–05 28 February 1305 20 March 1305 John Halyday William Costyn45th 5 April 1306 1306 30 May 1306 30 May 1306 Simon de Wilshamstead Geoffrey le Blund46th 3 November 1306 1306–07 20 January 1307 19 March 1307 William Costyn John le Marescal