West Derbyshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Boundaries

This was the only really safe Conservative seat in Derbyshire, consisting mostly of rural villages and tourist towns like Bakewell and Matlock; Labour's only strengths were in Wirksworth and Masson, not enough to end the long-standing Conservative representation of this seat.

Boundary review

Following their review of parliamentary representation in Derbyshire, the Boundary Commission for England created a new constituency of Derbyshire Dales based on the existing West Derbyshire constituency.

History

Historically associated with the Cavendish family, the seat and its predecessors were usually represented by one of the future Dukes of Devonshire or their relatives from 1580 until the Second World War. When the Cavendish family left the Liberals over Irish Home Rule the seat stayed loyal to them as they sat first as Liberal Unionists then as Conservatives. In 1918 the hold on the constituency was briefly broken by Charles Frederick White standing for the Liberals, but the seat was regained in 1923. In a by-election in 1944, White's son, also called Charles Frederick White resigned as the official Labour nominee in order to stand against the wartime party truce. He defeated the Conservative candidate, William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, and subsequently took the Labour whip in the Commons, holding the seat in the 1945 general election for Labour. The Conservatives regained the seat in the 1950 general election and held it with mostly safe majorities thereafter, with Liberal-affiliated candidates being their main challengers from 1974 onwards, with the closest they came to losing being in the 1986 by-election when they held it by only 100 votes in a period of heavy unpopularity for the government of Margaret Thatcher. The seat changed its name (with minor boundary changes) to Derbyshire Dales in 2010.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Elections in the 1880s

|reg. electors = 10,310

Elections in the 1890s

|reg. electors = 11,956

Elections in the 1900s

|reg. electors = 11,443

Elections in the 1910s

|reg. electors = 11,962

|reg. electors = 11,962 General Election 1914–15:

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

• Unionist:Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice
• Liberal: Charles White

|reg. electors = 29,323

Elections in the 1920s

|reg. electors = 30,231 |reg. electors = 31,067 |reg. electors = 31,757 |reg. electors = 40,487

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1939–40

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;

• Conservative: Henry Hunloke
• Labour: Charles White
• Liberal: James Ivor Waddington

Elections in the 1940s

Elections in the 1950s

Elections in the 1960s

Elections in the 1970s

Elections in the 1980s

Elections in the 1990s

url=http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/ge92/ge92index.htm|title=Politics Resources|date=9 April 1992|work=Election 1992|publisher=Politics Resources|access-date=2010-12-06}}

Elections in the 2000s

Sources

• Guardian Unlimited Politics (Election results from 1992 to the present)
• http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/ (Election results from 1951 to the present)

References

1. {{Rayment-hc. d. 1. (March 2012)
2. British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918, FWS Craig
3. The Liberal Year Book, 1907
4. Debrett's House of Commons & Judicial Bench, 1886
5. (1974). "British Parliamentary Election Results: 1885-1918". Macmillan Press.
6. Debrett's House of Commons & Judicial Bench, 1901
7. Debrett's House of Commons & Judicial Bench, 1916
8. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–1949, FWS Craig
9. British parliamentary election results, 1918–1949 by FWS Craig
10. Derby Daily Telegraph, 10 Jan 1938
11. "Election Data 1983". [[Electoral Calculus]].
12. "Election Data 1987". [[Electoral Calculus]].
13. "Election Data 1992". [[Electoral Calculus]].
14. "Election Data 1997". [[Electoral Calculus]].
15. "Election Data 2001". [[Electoral Calculus]].
16. "Election Data 2005". [[Electoral Calculus]].