6-733: Hawick Burghs was a district of burghs constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until 1918. It consisted of the Roxburghshire burgh of Hawick and the Selkirkshire burghs of Galashiels and Selkirk . George Otto Trevelyan was returned without opposition at the 1868 general election and again after acceptance of office at a by-election on 14 January 1869. Trevelyan
12-524: A district were not necessarily adjacent or even close together. Until 1832, the self-elected Council of each burgh in a district elected a commissioner, who had one vote for the MP. The commissioner from the Returning Burgh (which function rotated amongst the burghs in successive elections) had an additional casting vote if the numbers were equal. Burgh councils had small memberships, with the result that
18-404: The combined electorate for all 14 constituencies in 1831 was no more than 1,270. The Scottish Reform Act 1832 amended the composition of the districts, and the boundaries of a burgh for parliamentary purposes ceased to be necessarily those of the burgh for other purposes. The franchise was extended, and votes from all the burghs were added together. There were further changes to the number and
24-621: The composition of the districts under the Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 , Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 , and Representation of the People Act 1918 . The district of burghs system was eventually discontinued by the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 , but the term Burghs continued in use in the names of some constituencies until 1974. The idea of parliamentary burghs continues to this day, in
30-430: The following candidates had been selected; District of burghs The Act of Union 1707 and pre-Union Scottish legislation provided for 14 Members of Parliament (MPs) from Scotland to be elected from districts of burghs . All the parliamentary burghs ( burghs represented in the pre-Union Parliament of Scotland ) were assigned to a district, except for Edinburgh which had an MP to itself. The burghs in
36-634: Was appointed Civil Lord of the Admiralty . Trevelyan was appointed Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland , requiring a by-election. Trevelyan was appointed Secretary for Scotland , requiring a by-election. Shaw was appointed Solicitor-General for Scotland , requiring a by-election. General Election 1914–15 : 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,
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