The constituency consisted of the whole county of
Durham (including the enclaves of
Norhamshire,
Islandshire and
Bedlington, all situated within the boundaries of
Northumberland and now part of that county, and of
Crayke, now in
North Yorkshire). Because of its semi-autonomous status as a
county palatine, Durham had not been represented in Parliament during the medieval period;
from 1543 it was the only part of England which elected no MPs. In 1621, Parliament passed a bill to enfranchise the county, but
James I refused it the
royal assent, as he considered that the House of Commons already had too many members and that some
decayed boroughs should be abolished first; a similar bill in 1624 failed to pass the
House of Lords. During the
Commonwealth, County Durham was allowed to send members to the
First and
Second Parliaments of the Protectorate, though the privilege was not maintained when Parliament reverted to its earlier electoral arrangements from 1658. After the
Restoration, Durham's right to return MPs was recognised in 1661, and finally confirmed by the
Durham (Representation of) Act 1672 (
25 Cha. 2. c. 9); however, it did not come into effect until 1675 when the Speaker was authorised to issue his warrant. The county returned two members, and the same
act also established
Durham City as a
parliamentary borough with its own two members. As in other
county constituencies, until 1832 the franchise was defined by the
Forty Shilling Freeholder Act 1430, which gave the right to vote to every man who possessed
freehold property within the county valued at £2 or more per year for the purposes of land tax; it was not necessary for the freeholder to occupy his land, nor even in later years to be resident in the county at all. By the time of the
Reform Act 1832, the county had a population of just over 250,000, although this was slightly reduced by the boundary changes which severed the enclaves and made them part of Northumberland or the North Riding of Yorkshire for parliamentary purposes. The electorate was only a fraction of this number: at the general election of 1790, 5,578 voted, and in 1820 the number was only 3,741. Although nobody could exert the degree of control over the voters that was common in many boroughs, several of the major local landowners had significant influence, in particular the Vane
Earls of Darlington. In 1832 the county's representation was doubled, and the constituency divided into two new two-member constituencies,
North Durham and
South Durham. == Members of Parliament ==