The Senate consisted of 26 members. Twenty-four members elected by the
House of Commons of Northern Ireland using the
Single Transferable Vote (STV), elected in blocks of twelve with each senator's term lasting for two parliaments (i.e. two terms of the House of Commons) and two
ex-officio members: the
Lord Mayor of Belfast and
Mayor of Londonderry. Convention held that, in the event of a by-election, only members of the Commons from the same county would vote on their replacement. The election system was maintained even after the abolition of STV for the House of Commons. In 1925, at the end of the first parliament, the senators to retire were selected by lot. At the subsequent election, voting papers from the Nationalist MPs and
George Henderson were deemed to have been submitted late, and were not considered. All these members had given a high preference to the Nationalist candidate, Vincent Devoto, and a subsequent analysis of the transfers showed that these would otherwise have been sufficient to elect him.
Office-holders The key offices in the Senate were: • Speaker • 2 Deputy Speakers • Leader of the House • Deputy Leader of the House (abolished in 1961).
Political composition During its history 142 people sat in the upper house. With the addition of the
Unionist Lord Mayor of
Belfast Corporation and Mayor of
Londonderry Corporation, together with boycotts of the Commons at various times by nationalist parties and fragmentation of the opposition into some parties too small to elect a Senator alone, the upper house proved to be even more heavily Unionist than the lower house. However a
Nationalist,
Thomas Stanislaus McAllister, served two periods as deputy speaker. The table below shows the political composition of the twenty-four elected members of the Senate, after each election. It does not show subsequent changes of party allegiance, nor changes resulting from by-elections. Following the 1969 election, there was one vacant seat. Other than
Hugh O'Doherty, Mayor of Londonderry until 1923, all the ex officio members were Ulster Unionists.
Peerages Peers of the Realm were disproportionately represented in the Senate. Nine senators were or became peers of the realm at the time of their membership of the Senate. These were
James Hamilton, 3rd Duke of Abercorn,
James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Abercorn,
Maxwell Ward, 6th Viscount Bangor,
James Edward Caulfeild, 8th Viscount Charlemont,
Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 3rd Marquess of Dufferin and Ava,
Daniel Dixon, 2nd Baron Glentoran,
Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry,
Algernon Skeffington, 12th Viscount Massereene, and
William Pirrie, 1st Viscount Pirrie. Lord Bangor and Lord Charlemont held Irish titles only; Lord Charlemont had been elected as an
Irish representative peer and so sat in the House of Lords, Lord Bangor however did not. At least another three senators subsequently became peers by different routes.
Lord Robert Grosvenor inherited the title of
Duke of Westminster from his brother, Sir
Basil Brooke was created
Viscount Brookeborough and Victor Cooke was created a
life peer as
Baron Cooke of Islandreagh. ==Abolition==