Scarborough was first represented in a Parliament held at Shrewsbury in 1282, and was one of the boroughs sending 2 MPs to the Model Parliament of 1295 which is now generally considered to be the first parliament in the modern sense.
Until the Great Reform Act of 1832 Scarborough was a corporation borough, the right of election resting solely with the 44-member corporation or "common council". At an earlier period, it seems to have been a matter of some dispute whether the freemen of the borough could also vote, but at an election in 1736 the corporation and the (much more numerous) freemen backed different candidates. The candidate of the freemen was returned to Parliament, but on petition from his defeated opponent the House of Commons decided that only the corporation votes should stand, and overturned the result. In later days the corporation was entirely under the influence of the Duke of Rutland and Earl of Mulgrave, who each nominated one of the Members of Parliament; by 1832, Scarborough had continuously been represented by junior members of their respective families for more than half a century. The restriction on the franchise was challenged in 1791, and Parliament declared in favour of "the ancient right of inhabitant householders" in the borough to vote, but the decision seems to have been a dead-letter for at the election of 1802, the last to be contested before the Reform Act, only 33 voters cast their votes.
At the time of the Reform Act, the borough had a population of about 8,760 in just over 2,000 houses, and the Act left its boundaries and two members intact, though widening the franchise. (There were 431 electors registered at the 1832 election.) The constituency remained broadly unchanged until 1918, though from 1885 its representation was reduced from two MPs to one.
There were further boundary changes at the 1983 general election, which brought in Whitby and its surrounding area in place of the Pickering district. The constituency was abolished once more for the 1997 general election, when it was again largely replaced by a new Scarborough and Whitby constituency.
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 July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;
^Cobbett's Parliamentary History records that "21 June 1660, Mr Robinson was discharged by an Order of the House from sitting, and a writ ordered to be issued to elect another in his room; but the Journals do not give us the reason for this expulsion"
^Created a baronet as Sir John Legard, December 1660
^Dupplin beat Osbaldeston in the by-election by 154 votes to 27, but Dupplin's votes came mostly from the freemen and Osbaldeston had the majority of corporation votes (26 to 18). On petition the freemen's votes were discounted, Dupplin's election voided and Osbaldeston declared duly elected.
D. Brunton & D. H. Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885 (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
Thomas Hinderwell, The history and antiquities of Scarborough and the vicinity (2nd edition, York: Thomas Wilson & Son, 1811) [2]
J. Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
Edward Porritt and Annie G. Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847 (2nd edition, edited by F. W. S. Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
Robert Walcott, English Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956)
