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Earl of Thanet, with others, was charged with having
created a riot in court in an attempt to rescue the prisoner; the earl
was found guilty, and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment in the Tower,
and a heavy fine.
The nineteenth century witnessed important changes in the parliamentary
representation of Kent. There were two members for the county up to 1832
and two each for Canterbury, Maidstone, Queenborough, Rochester, Dover,
New Romney, Hythe and Sandwich. By the Reform Act the representation was
changed to two members for the eastern division, two for the western,
two for Canterbury, one for Chatham, two each for Greenwich, Maidstone,
Rochester and Dover, one for Hythe, and two for Sandwich. By the Act of
1867, West Kent was divided into West and Mid Kent. In 1868 East Kent
returned nine members: two for the division, two each for Canterbury,
Dover and Sandwich, and one for Hythe; Mid Kent returned eight members: two for the division, two each for Rochester and Maidstone, and one each
for Chatham and Gravesend; 20a and West Kent four: two for the division,
and two for Greenwich.21 The Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 made
Woolwich a metropolitan parliamentary borough, and reduced the
representation of Canterbury, Rochester and Dover to one member each,
while the representation of the county was changed from six members in
three divisions, to eight members in eight divisions.22
By the
Representation of the People Act, 8 Geo. V, the number of parliamentary
divisions has been increased from eight to eleven.23
Under the Local Government Act of 1888, Kent (except such portions as
are included in the county of London, and the borough of Canterbury,
which is a county borough) became an administrative county, governed by
a county council.
The county has one court of general sessions and two of quarter
sessions. The number of sessional divisions is 16, exclusive of the
liberty of Romney Marsh, which has petty and general sessions. With the
exception of the portion included in the metropolitan police district,
the shire for judicial purposes belongs to the south-eastern circuit.
The part played by Kent in the Great War far exceeded anything in its
previous history. From 1914 onwards the county became one vast arena of
naval and military activity. The organization responsible for the safe
transport of troops abroad from Dover and Folkestone, of military
apparatus, guns and tanks by the train ferry from Richborough, the
training camps for the new armies, manufacture of armaments at Woolwich,
the minor naval actions in the Straits, the bombarding by monitors of
the Belgian coast, and finally the heroic attack on Zeebrugge on 23
April 1918 all form an episode in the history of Kent with which it is
impossible to deal in the present work.
20 Made a parliamentary borough by the same Act.
21 W. E. Gladstone was returned for Greenwich
18 November, 1868.
22 The Western or Sevenoaks; North-Western or Dartford; South-Western or
Tonbridge; Mid or Medway; North-Eastern or Faversham; Southern or
Ashford; Eastern or St. Augustine’s; and the Isle of Thanet.
23 By this act Bromley has been formed into a parliamentary borough,
comprising the municipal borough and urban districts of Penge and
Beckenham. Canterbury, Dover, Gravesend and Maidstone were
disfranchised, but given names in parliamentary divisions. |