The constituency was created when the Great Reform Act split Gloucestershire into eastern and western divisions, with effect from the 1832 general election.

Under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, East Gloucestershire was abolished from the 1885 election, when the former eastern and western divisions were replaced by five new single-seat county constituencies: Cirencester, Forest of Dean, Stroud, Tewkesbury, and Thornbury.

1832–1885: The Hundreds of Crowthorne and Minety, Brightwell's Barrow, Bradley, Rapsgate, Bisley, Longtree, Whitstone, Kiftsgate, Westminster, Deerhurst, Slaughter, Cheltenham, Cleeve, Tibaldston, Tewkesbury, and Dudstone and King's Barton, and also the City and County of Gloucester and the Borough of Cirencester.

This was where the hustings were situated and electors voted by spoken declaration in public, before the secret ballot was introduced in 1872.

The parliamentary borough constituencies of Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury were all located in East Gloucestershire.