British Elections 1918-1945

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Electorate of 90,000 by 1935!

[MaxQue]

Electorate of 90,000 by 1935!

I suppose it was overpopulated? What was the size of an electorate, at that moment?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Normal would have been about half that.

[afleitch]

I have a map of the 1945 result by 1950 boundaries kicking about somewhere.

[stepney]

Stretford. Almost certainly done wrong.

[EPG]

Looks right to me. Classic example of a constituency of leftover parts that didn't end up in the parli boroughs to the north. It started out with the three towns named at the bottom, and a couple of detached parts of non-contiguous rural districts.

[MaxQue]

Well, it made sense in 1917, when it was drew. Stretford UD, Irlam UD, the Barton Moss, Flixton and Davyhulme parish of Barton-upon-Irwell RD and Astley parish of Leigh RD.

The changes on local goverments complicated things.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The interesting thing is that the changes in local government areas were generally driven by population changes: this is the area of ribbon development, 'metroland' and the first big suburban council estates.

[doktorb]

I want to rename that so hard...

[EPG]

Bump

1923 was a Liberal false dawn, with scores of 2- and 3-digit majorities. A year later in this region, they held two seats, gained and lost two against Labour, lost one to the Communists (really unofficial Labour) and lost all the rest to the Conservatives. Mosley would soon join Labour and move seat from Harrow to Birmingham, Ladywood, barely losing to Neville Chamberlain. Labour made progress in east London and the Thames estuary, stronger than their gains in other urban areas in 1923.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Antonio the Sixth]

Really a gorgeous map! I'm going to save it on my computer to avoid losing it.

It appears that there used to be non-contiguous constituencies back in these days? That's weird.

[Phony Moderate]

Plenty of red in East Anglia; those were the days.

[joevsimp]

Plenty of red in East Anglia; those were the days.

not to mention the good old Common Wealth Party in Chelmesford, I've got Earnest Millington's autobiography on my Christmas list

</geek>

[YL]

It appears that there used to be non-contiguous constituencies back in these days? That's weird.

In various counties in Scotland and Wales you had constituencies called "Districts of Boroughs" (or "Burghs" in Scotland) which contained the major towns but not the rural bits between them.  Caernarfon Boroughs (which probably wasn't spelt that way back then) would be a particularly well known example because it was represented by Lloyd George for many years; in this election it's those disjointed bits of pale blue on the north-west Wales coast between the yellow of Anglesey and the deepish red of the rest of Caernarfonshire.  Most of the others had gone by this time.

Other examples will be because constituencies didn't generally contain parts of more than one county and some counties were themselves non-contiguous.  Flintshire is probably the best known example, but it looks like the bizarre boundaries of Worcestershire with Gloucestershire and Warwickshire were still reflected in the constituency map at this point.

[YL]

BTW is there a reason for the three northern Highlands seats all being National Liberal?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BTW is there a reason for the three northern Highlands seats all being National Liberal?

Actually Caithness & Sutherland wasn't; just an extremely close (six votes) Tory win.* And oddly there's confusion over the labelling of the winner in Ross & Cromarty: he was not actually a member of either Liberal party. I've coloured the seat National Liberal because that's where he ended up.

_{*Con 33.5, Labour 33.4, Liberal 33.1. The defeated Liberal incumbent was the party's leader, Archibald Sinclair.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Caernarfon Boroughs (which probably wasn't spelt that way back then) would be a particularly well known example because it was represented by Lloyd George for many years; in this election it's those disjointed bits of pale blue on the north-west Wales coast between the yellow of Anglesey and the deepish red of the rest of Caernarfonshire.  Most of the others had gone by this time.

And that one was only preserved because the incumbent at the time of the 1917 boundary review happened to be the Prime Minister...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One of the constituencies divided for the 1945 election, though in this case into not one, not two, not three, but four seats:



By the time of the 1935 election this monster of a seat had an electorate of 168,000...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Maps showing the number of times a given party won each constituency in the period with notes. Enjoy.

[DistingFlyer]

Maps showing the number of times a given party won each constituency in the period with notes. Enjoy.

I'd say they're all three - useful, interesting and pretty.