Under the provisions of the 1707 Succession to the Crown Act and subsequent legislation MPs appointed to certain ministerial and legal offices were required to seek re-election on taking up office. Despite Lord John Russell's attempt to remove this necessity in his unsuccessful 1852 Reform Bill, it was not until 1919, with the passage of the Re-Election of Ministers Act, that this requirement was removed. The 504 government appointment re-elections which occurred between 1832 and 1886 made up the single largest category (27%) of all by-elections, or ‘single elections’ as they were frequently called, during this period. A slightly lower number of by-elections were occasioned by the resignation of a sitting MP, 489 in all, and another 449 by-elections were held on the death of an MP. The remaining 23% of by-elections were occasioned by MPs being unseated as the result of an election petition; succession or elevation to the peerage; an MP being elected for more than one constituency; or because of disqualification from the House of Commons.

This essay examines the 504 government appointment re-elections required of MPs taking up ministerial and legal office between 1832 and 1886. Of these ‘single elections’ 299 (59%) involved Whig, Reform or Liberal appointments and 205 (41%) were Conservative appointments: a result of the fact that Whigs and Liberals held office alone for over thirty-four years during this period, in coalition with Peelites for three years, and that the Conservatives were in government for seventeen years and six months. In particular, this essay considers those re-elections which were contested, to see what light they throw on the relations between government, party and the dynamics of local constituency politics.