Corfe Castle was a parliamentary borough in Dorset, which elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons from 1572 until 1832, when it was abolished by the Great Reform Act. A borough constituency (in Scotland, a burgh constituency) is a type of parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom. ... January 16 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. ... Year 1832 (MDCCCXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... In the United Kingdom each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly. ... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ... Parliamentary boroughs are boroughs that are entitled to representation in a Parliament. ... Dorset (pronounced DOR-sit or [dɔ.sət], and sometimes in the past called Dorsetshire) is a county in the south-west of England, on the English Channel coast. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ... The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... January 16 - Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England. ... Year 1832 (MDCCCXXXII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian Calendar (or a leap year starting on Friday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ... The British Reform Act of 1832 (2 & 3 Will. ...

The borough consisted of the town of Corfe Castle on the Isle of Purbeck, once a market town but by the 19th century little more than a village, where the main economic interests were clay and stone quarrying. In 1831, the population of the borough was approximately 960, and the town contained 156 houses. Corfe Castle is a small village and ruined castle ( ) dating back to the 11th century, situated in a gap in the Purbeck Hills, five miles south of Wareham, in Dorset, England. ... Corfe Castle The Isle of Purbeck, not a true island but a peninsula, is in the county of Dorset, England. ...

The right to vote was exercised by all householders (resident or not) paying scot and lot; in 1816 this amounted to only 44 voters, and all but 14 of those were non-resident. The local landowners were able to exercise almost total influence. In the late 18th and early 19th century, the Bankes family (who had owned the castle since 1640) nominated the member for one of the seats and the Bond family for the other. Scot and lot (0. ...

Corfe Castle was abolished as a separate constituency by the Reform Act; however, the nearby borough of Wareham kept one of its MPs, and Corfe Castle was included within the expanded boundaries of the revised Wareham constituency.

References

• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition - London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)