United Kingdom Historical Election Maps 1918-50

[ObserverIE]

Interesting that there is a constituency called "Belfast Victoria".

It was also used for a Stormont constituency from 1929 (FPTP in those days) and remained the name of a local government electoral area until 2011.  One of the successors is now called Titanic: yes, the name refers to that Titanic.

Although the old Victoria DEA only included bits east of the river, whereas that Belfast Victoria constituency was made up of the bits of East Belfast north of the Newtownards Road (very working-class round Sydenham with ship-building as the main employer; more middle-class further east) but also hopped across the Lagan to take in the Docks and the nationalist New Lodge area.

Swam, really, given that there was (and is) no road connection between the two.

Victoria AIUI refers to Victoria Park, just east of the docks.



Victoria ward ran north of the Newtownards Road; the Victoria constituency for Stormont didn't include the shipyard which was in Pottinger along with the western part of that ward north of Albertbridge Road (confusingly, most of Pottinger ward made up Belfast Bloomfield).

[ObserverIE]

Why did Victoria constituency (in 1918, not the Stormont one) do that?  Was Elbridge Gerry involved in any way?

The official rationale would have been that docks and shipbuilding have a common interest. I'm sure reducing the possibility of a second non-unionist MP being elected for Belfast would have been entirely irrelevant (it would have been unlikely anyway, but putting Dock in with Victoria eliminated any such possibility).

[ObserverIE]

The process for drawing boundaries in 1917 was different to the regular reviews from the 1950s onwards and there was more room for consciously political decisions: one we can confirm for definite would be the curious decision to go against the general policy of abolishing all District of Boroughs constituencies outside of Scotland in the case of the constituency in North Wales that just so happened to be represented by the Prime Minister. My suspicion (and it can only be a suspicion) is that if the boundaries had been drawn before the Conservative entered the Wartime Coalition, then the boundaries in certain parts of Ireland would have been drawn rather differently.

The obvious one being Fermanagh retaining a second (highly marginal Unionist) seat when neighbouring Leitrim had a larger population and similarly awkward geography.

[ObserverIE]

It always seems amazing that Belfast was once considered worthy of having nine constituencies of its own.  Today it struggles to find enough territory outside the expanded city boundary for four.

I wonder how many of the nine would have been carried by a Unionist candidate in 2019.

Best guess: Cromac and Ormeau would have been SDLP; St. Anne's and (narrowly) Duncairn would be SF and Shankill would have a sizeable SF vote (Woodvale would still be securely Unionist but the decline in the Unionist population west of the Lagan is most marked here). The split along the Newtownards Road rather than on an inner/outer basis would help the DUP in the east Belfast seats although a tactical vote in the New Lodge might tip Victoria to Alliance.