Cambridge University (UK Parliament constituency)

The leading 18th-century Whig politician Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, was Chancellor of the University of Cambridge from 1748 to 1768 and recommended to the electors suitable candidates to represent them in Parliament.

However, Grafton was less influential as a politician than Newcastle had been and also less attentive towards the university, and as a result some of his nominations came in for criticism, notably that of his friend Richard Croftes.

Croftes was far from typical of a university member of parliament: he was neither the son of a peer, like the Hon.

John Townshend, the Marquess of Granby, and Grafton's own son the Earl of Euston, nor a distinguished lawyer-politician, such as William de Grey, James Mansfield, and Sir Vicary Gibbs, nor a prominent political figure like William Pitt the Younger and Lord Henry Petty.

The future Prime Minister, Viscount Palmerston, retained his university seat as a Whig after he left the Tory ranks, but in 1831 he was defeated.

This is a list of people who have been elected to represent this university in the Parliament of the United Kingdom.