British Elections 1950-1970

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Were there any other Labour MPs from Sussex before 1997?

No. Closest to it was when Hobden came within 5pts in October 1974.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've tried to be clever with the colour scheme, which is probably a mistake. Manchester constituencies are in one colour (though you'll note that two extended beyond the boundary of the city), constituencies containing part of a County Borough in another, constituencies entirely within the area covered by Lancashire County Council in the last.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I was very tempted to give Slutton the Brummie colour, especially as it actually included a ward from the city. But I restrained myself. The other Black Country colour covers the two constituencies not technically part of Staffordshire; Dudley was always Worcestershire, while most of Oldbury & Halesowen had once been part of Shropshire, though were technically Worcestershire by this point as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

As you can see, the whole area was subject to repeated strong swings throughout the period (and just outside it! The swing to Labour in 1974 was larger than just about anywhere else), though Labour always had a majority of MPs. One of the main reasons for this was immigration. The West Midlands conurbation had previously been one of most insular major industrial areas in the country; even Irish immigration in the nineteenth century had been relatively light. Yet in the post-war years the area was one of the main destinations for immigrants from the former colonies (especially Kashmir and the Punjab, but also the West Indies and Ireland). The reaction to this was often not especially pretty. Of course, it should be remembered that swings in this area would have been unusually high anyway; the 'normal' framework of politics had only been established ten years before this period started with Birmingham's extraordinary democratic revolution in 1945.

My descriptions are apparently too long. Please hold.

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Birmingham

1. Ladywood - in 1955 this constituency was dominated by the nineteenth century slums that ringed the city centre; an overwhelming majority of the population lived in three of the city's five central redevelopment areas (Ladywood, Duddeston & Nechells and Summer Lane; the latter two were renamed during this period as Nechells Green and Newtown) and during this period the electorate fell from around 46,000 to about 18,000. Most of the time it was a rock solid Labour constituency, but discontent at council policy (Birmingham resisted the transition to system building until remarkably late, so slum clearance progressed at a very slow rate until the late 1960s; literally street by street. And, of course, when the city did transfer to system building, the usual problems occurred. Immigration was also an issue at the margins) gave the local Liberals - essentially a personality cult built around the crypto-fascist Wallace Lawler - an issue to build up a strong local government vote in certain central wards. When longtime MP Victor Yates died in 1969, Lawler won the ensuing by-election, but was defeated in 1970 by City Council veteran Doris Fisher.

2. Small Heath - a very working class constituency that stretched out from the slums of the Gooch Street central redevelopment area (now known as Highgate), to Bordesley and the old industrial suburbs of Saltley and Small Heath. Slum clearance in Gooch Street and the slow decay of the rest of the constituency (see All Saints) saw the population fall sharply, though immigration (mostly from Kashmir) prevented it from collapsing. A safe Labour seat that became very safe by the end of the period. The MP from a by-election in 1961 was former All Saints MP Denis Howell, a wizard who's magical abilities won England the World Cup in 1966 and cured the worse drought in centuries ten years later.

3. Edgbaston - largely residential and middle class, Edgbaston was dominated by the traditional bourgeois district of that name, but also included the more conventional middle class suburb of Harborne, the Quinton area (a mixture of suburbs and estates; though still quite middle class back then), and, bizarrely, the area around the city centre. Which means it included a slum district; the Bath Row central redevelopment area (renamed Lee Bank during this period). The population was stable as decline in some areas was met by growth in others. Always a safe Tory seat, it became slightly (but only slightly) less so over the course of the period.

4. All Saints - this was originally a fairly working class constituency that included some middle class areas, but had become solidly working class by 1970. It included the part of Hockley not in the Summer Lane central redevelopment area (and maybe a little inside it hard to tell), Soho, Winson Green, Gib Heath and Rotton Park. There was (and is) in Birmingham a massive ring of late nineteenth century housing, and the All Saints constituency was entirely within it. There was a long, slow process of urban decay (in part caused by complex problems with leasehold properties, which there was a massive amount in Birmingham) partially offset by immigration. All of which caused property prices to fall, and the middle classes to leave in disproportionate numbers. White Flight was a factor in places, but has been exaggerated. Anyway. This was a key marginal until the mid 1960s when it became a safe Labour seat. The MP before 1959 was the aforementioned wizard, the MP after 1964 was Brian Walden, a Labour right-winger who became a plain right-winger during the 1970s and left for television.

5. Handsworth - the comment on urban decay in All Saints applies even more to Handsworth. The constituency was made up of Handsworth itself, Handsworth Wood, Birchfield and Lozells; the latter was working class even in 1955 and included part of the Summer Lane central redevelopment area. Handsworth proper was one of Birmingham's traditional bourgeois districts, though it was always more petty bourgeois than establishment Edgbaston or professional Moseley, but changed beyond all recognition during this period. As the area declined it became one of the main destinations for immigrants and by the early 1970s it was legitimately inner city. The constituency was a safe Tory seat in 1955 but marginal - and clearly doomed - by 1970.

6. Aston - an industrial and working class constituency that stretched from increasingly inner city Aston, through Gravelly Hill to the suburban estates at Stockland Green. The usual patterns of decay and immigration applied here, and the electorate fell by around twelve thousand over the period. Harry Watton - the old fashioned machine politician who led the council for most of the 1960s - was from this area and his power base was the Aston Manor Labour Club. The MP was also interesting; Julius Silverman an intellectual left-winger who held various North Birmingam seats from 1945 until his retirement in 1983 and who later led the report of the City Council into the Handsworth Riots. This was basically a safe Labour seat, though the margins were sometimes worryingly low.

7. Sparkbrook - a strange narrow strip of a constituency that started in Sparkbrook (ninteenth century terraces that saw large scale immigration during this period), included the slowly decaying suburbs in the Sparkhill ward and finished off at Fox Hollies; inter-war estates on the eastern border of the city. Always a strongly working class constituency, one reason for Labour losing the seat in 1959 was the death of beloved incumbent Percy Shurmer shortly before the election which appears to have caught the normally well-prepared Birmingham Labour Party off guard. The 1964 campaign was a nasty one, dominated by the issue of immigration. Roy Hattersley won and went on to hold an increasingly safe seat for three decades.

8. Selly Oak - a residential constituency that included the traditional professional district of Moseley, the less posh middle class suburb of Selly Oak and a large part (maybe all) of working class Balsall Heath. The usual processes were at work here, perhaps slightly speeded up by the fact that Balsall Heath turned into the city's red light district during this period. This - combined with changes in the voting patterns of public sector professionals - caused a safe Tory seat in 1955 to turn into a marginal by 1970.

9. Perry Barr - weirdly this still covered the old Perry Barr UD (incorporated into the city in the twenties) and, by the look of it, nothing else. This was a suburban constituency and pretty working class; Perry Barr proper might have been middle class suburbia, but the giant Kingstanding estate was in the constituency, and other there were other large estates as well. This ought to have produced a fairly reliable Labour constituency, but the issue of immigration was toxic and cost Labour the seat in both 1964 (against the grain) and 1970.

10. Stechford - stretching out from the old industrial suburb of Washwood Heath through interwar estates and suburbs around Stechford itself to the massive post-war estates of Shard End and Kitts Green, this was a very working class constituency and a safe Labour seat. It's MP throughout this period was Roy Jenkins, one of the leading members of the Wilson government and a future EEC President and traitor member of the Gang of Four. Decline in Washwood Heath partly offset the massive housebuilding programmes in the east of the constituency, though only partly.

11. Yardley - a suburban constituency, more working class than not but quite prosperous, and prone to a laughable degree of electoral volatility. It was a mixture of council estates (mostly interwar, but also post-war stuff around Tile Cross) and privately built suburbs. From 1959 onwards always swung with the national tide, though not in neat way.

12. Hall Green - comfortable, middle class suburbia with a fair few interwar estates at its southern edge. Included Hall Green, Kings Heath, Brandwood, Billesley and Yardley Wood. A safe Tory seat, though Labour did manage to take the majority below 10pts in 1966.

13. Northfield - a massive suburban constituency that was mostly working class - well-paid and skilled working class - but which also included a considerable middle class element. Employment was dominated by the massive Longbridge works (in this constituency, obviously). It included Longbridge, Northfield, Kings Norton, Weoley Castle, Bartley Green and Bournville. Already a large constituency in 1955, it had an electorate of around 96,000 by 1970 as the area was ideal for house building projects (both the council's and those of private developers). This was always a Labour constituency, a low swinging marginal until the mid 60s, and very volatile afterwards. Until 1970 the MP was Donald Chapman, an intellectual from a working class background and former head of the Fabian Society.

14. Sutton Coldfield - as it included a part of Birmingham proper (Erdington) why not list it here as well? It isn't as though there's much to say. Slutton was - and is - a snobbish, bourgeois suburban hell. There's even a pecking order within the place; Four Oaks is to Sutton Coldfield as Sutton Coldfield is to Birmingham. So, yeah. A very safe Tory seat and one that saw a huge increase in its population during this period. The electorate was around 58,000 in 1955 and was about 93,000 in 1970. This was not purely due to rich people moving out of the city; the Castle Vale estate (a massive system-built series of tower blocks and houses built in the mid-to-late 1960s to house thousands of displaced slum-dwellers) was (tee hee!) mostly inside the boundaries of this constituency. Though moved out by 1974, obviously. Roy Hattersley's first taste of Midlands politics came in 1959 when he was the Labour paper candidate here.

The Black Country will follow.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Black Country

Non Staffs.

1. Dudley - a constituency of two parts, something necessitated by the decision of the boundary commission to respect technical county lines in the Black Country. The largest part was Dudley itself; a classic Black Country town, except that it was (and is) more insular than normal, something that is probably a legacy of it's enclave status. Separated from Dudley by a narrow strip of Staffordshire was Stourbridge, which was (and is) mostly middle class and who's inhabitants have tended to dislike being associated with the Black Country. You can probably guess how each part tended to vote. For most of the period this was a safe Labour seat held by George Wigg who was a rather interesting individual. Wigg was kicked upstairs after becoming chairman of the Tote sparking a by-election in the spring of 1968, by which point the Wilson government had become extremely unpopular. The by-election was won for the Tories by the openly racist Donald Williams, but was narrowly regained for Labour by John Gilbert, who went on to hold seats in the general area until his retirement in 1997.

2. Oldbury & Halesowen - the name is a bit of a give away really; this was a socially polarised marginal and (like Dudley) only existed because the boundary commission insisted on sticking to county boundaries. Oldbury is about as close to being a typical Black Country town as exists, while Halesowen is effectively a middle class dormitory suburb of Birmingham (despite its industrial past). The constituency also included the chain-making town of Cradley. The Labour parts of the constituency could normally outvote the Tory parts, but the continued growth of Halesowen combined with the huge Powell-and-racism-driven regional swing in 1970 saw Labour left-winger John Horner defeated by far-right Tory John Heydon Stokes, a disgusting racist who the 1974 boundary changes (which paired Halesowen with Stourbridge) blessed with a long Commons career.

Staffs.

1. Smethwick - oh dear. Smethwick was a large industrial town just west of Birmingham and was already functionally a Birmingham suburb by this point (though it has always been forbidden to actually mention this fact out loud in Smethwick). Initially it was a fairly safe Labour seat, as you'd expect. It was held by Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, a Gaitskellite former academic called Patrick Gordon Walker. Yet the town had become a major focal point for Commonwealth immigration. I presume that anyone with even a slight interest in British politics during this period knows what happened next, but in case anyone doesn't: the Tory candidate in 1964 - Peter Griffiths - ran an openly and horrifically racist campaign (his slogan was, infamously, 'If you want a n neighour, vote Labour') and defeated Gordon Walker on an against-the-grain swing of 7pts. Griffiths was branded a 'parliamentary leper' by Harold Wilson and was comfortably beaten in 1966. Which is the point at which things start to get slightly surreal, because the Labour candidate was Andrew Faulds, a well-known actor who first became politically active at the suggestion of Paul Robeson. Smethwick (which, for the benefit of people who don't know, is pronounced Smeth-ick) ended up taking to Faulds and re-elected him through successive boundary changes until he retired in 1997.

2. Rowley Regis & Tipton - an utterly working class Black Country constituency. Parts of Rowley Regis CB would presumably have been decent for the Tories in a good year, but that scarcely mattered. Always one of the safest Labour seats in the West Midlands, it was held until 1966 by Arthur Henderson, the son of the former Labour leader of the same name.

3. Wednesbury - also known as 'Yam Yam Central', this constituency was made up of three rather insular Black Country towns (is that a tautology?), Wednesbury, Darlaston and Willenhall. All were capable of giving Labour candidates massive margins (indeed the constituency had been held by Labour for all but a single year since 1918), but only Darlaston was reliable, meaning that weird swings were the norm. It was only natural that an odd area should have odd MPs, and Wednesbury was represented until 1959 by the Stan Evans; a colourful right-winger who was involved in the secretive war against Communist influence in the Unions, had been sacked from the Attlee government for calling farmers 'feather-bedded', and who was deselected by the CLP due to his support for the government position on Suez. He was followed by John Stonehouse, a man best known for faking his death in 1974 in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to evade prosecution for fraud. Stonehouse was also, probably, a Czech spy. So, yeah.

At which point the numbers on the map don't quite match the numbers on the list. This is because of Walsall

4. West Bromwich - a large Black Country town with a long Labour history, West Brom was a safe Labour seat and never showed any sign of doing something especially weird electorally, despite large scale immigration. As well as the town itself, the constituency included various Birmingham suburbs, many of which were quite middle class though they were easily out-voted by West Brom proper.

5. Walsall North - the boundary commission decided that the boundaries around Walsall should be drawn in the strangest possible way. This constituency included the north of Walsall proper (very working class and very Labour; places like Blakenall), the very odd town of Bloxwich on the far northern edge of the Black Country... and then took a weird loop north to include the Staffordshire  towns of Norton Canes and Brownhills. The very strange part is that it didn't have strange politics and was a safe Labour seat. Walsall's wacky age (which continues to this day) was, however, to begin almost as soon as this period ended.

6. Walsall South - many of the above comments apply, obviously. Walsall South covered the southern and more middle class (even more so then) half of Walsall, before stretching out to the dull suburbs of Aldridge and finishing with a weird little hook north to Pelsall. The MP throughout this period was the splendidly named Sir Henry Joseph d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Bt.

7. Bilston - based around the Black Country town of that name (incorporated into Wolverhampton during this period), the constituency also included Coseley (mostly interwar estates) and Sedgley, which was fairly middle class and which grew rapidly during this period. The growth of Sedgley had a major impact on the politics of this constituency, as you can see even through the wild swings caused by being so close to Wolverhampton. The MP throughout this period was Robert Edwards, then General Secretary of the Chemical Workers Union, but once the leader of the ILP Contingent in the Spanish Civil War.

8. Wolverhampton North East - the name is deceptive; it really just covered the north of the town. A working class constituency, it included the districts of Heath Town, Dunstall Hill, Park Village, Springfield and Low Hill, and the suburbs of Bushbury and Oxley. The latter two were less Labour than the rest (obvious, I guess). The 1970 result is a freak and best ignored; the reason for it was the fact that the other constituency in the town was...

9. Wolverhampton South West - again, deceptive name. The constituency included the entire southern half of Wolverhampton CB, including Monmore Green, Blakenhall, Parkfield, Penn, Merridale and Graiseley, as well as most of the town centre. The constituency certainly included some very middle class areas, especially in the west, but there were working class areas as well and it was overall a socially mixed constituency. The massive Tory majorities are entirely explained by the personal popularity of one J. Enoch Powell, a man who had a massive influence over voting patterns in the Midlands from the 1960s until the mid 1970s and who was quite capable of working Classical allusions into race-baiting speeches. Obviously if you're actually reading this thread, you know all of that anyway. This half of Wolverhampton also saw the heaviest levels of immigration, especially the Blakenhall district; the white flight from parts of the town was quite astonishing, almost American in intensity. Powell briefly made racism respectable in the Midlands, but can't really be blamed for everything; Wolverhampton itself had a reputation for racism long before he decided that the Tiber foamed with blood and the issue of immigration had been toxic in the area long before he touched it.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I've tried to be clever with the colour scheme, which is probably a mistake. Manchester constituencies are in one colour (though you'll note that two extended beyond the boundary of the city), constituencies containing part of a County Borough in another, constituencies entirely within the area covered by Lancashire County Council in the last.

I never realised that Heywood and Royton had such a strange shape.

[minionofmidas]

2. Rowley Regis & Tipton - an utterly working class Black Country constituency. Parts of Rowley Regis CB would presumably have been decent for the Tories in a good year, but that scarcely mattered.

I don't think Rowley was a County Borough.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

2. Rowley Regis & Tipton - an utterly working class Black Country constituency. Parts of Rowley Regis CB would presumably have been decent for the Tories in a good year, but that scarcely mattered.

I don't think Rowley was a County Borough.

It wasn't - just a Municipal Borough - but I managed to misread the map on my wall and was too tired to think anything was wrong

(No comment on the sheer hilarious madness of West Midlands politics during this period? My favourite is probably Wednesbury. Did I mention that Stonehouse eventually joined the SDP?)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I never realised that Heywood and Royton had such a strange shape.

What do you think the logic of drawing it like that was?

[Parasite]

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[Parasite]

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[Filuwaúrdjan]

Coleshill was definitely in Meriden RD. I suspect the others were as well; Atherstone RD was almost entirely to the north of Nuneaton.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

I never realised that Heywood and Royton had such a strange shape.

What do you think the logic of drawing it like that was?

My surprise was basically that I had assumed that the seat included Castleton (this being the obvious way from Heywood to Royton) and went around the south of Rochdale rather than the north.

Looking at the old Urban District boundaries, it's starting to make some sort of sense.  The Rochdale seat is contiguous with the old county borough, while Heywood and Royton is Heywood, Whitworth, Wardle, Littleborough, Milnrow, Crompton and Royton UDs.  Castleton was part of Rochdale CB which is why my assumption was off.

I can only assume that the boundary commissioners thought that this configuration was a better idea than splitting Rochdale between two constituencies.  The problem is that while Whitworth looks contiguous with Wardle and Heywood on the map, in fact the boundaries run through trackless moorland - to get to Wardle or Heywood from Whitworth you have to go through Rochdale.

EDIT: This is my 200th post.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Norfolk, of course. The big story here is of political change brought about by the massive changes to agriculture during this period. Increasing mechanisation resulted in a collapse in agricultural employment, which, in turn, resulted in a collapse in the membership of the NUAW (the farm labourers trade union) and the end of a political culture that stretched back to the near revolutionary mood that briefly swept large parts of the countryside in 1872. Other demographic changes were at work (notably the growth of Norwich suburbia and the increasing popularity of parts of Norfolk for middle class pensioners) and speeded up the process. Of course few electoral patterns ever disappear entirely, and you can see traces of what once was in Norfolk even in very bad elections for Labour.

Constituency descriptions will be up later.

[YL]

1. Smethwick - oh dear. Smethwick was a large industrial town just west of Birmingham and was already functionally a Birmingham suburb by this point (though it has always been forbidden to actually mention this fact out loud in Smethwick). Initially it was a fairly safe Labour seat, as you'd expect. It was held by Labour's Shadow Foreign Secretary, a Gaitskellite former academic called Patrick Gordon Walker. Yet the town had become a major focal point for Commonwealth immigration. I presume that anyone with even a slight interest in British politics during this period knows what happened next, but in case anyone doesn't: the Tory candidate in 1964 - Peter Griffiths - ran an openly and horrifically racist campaign (his slogan was, infamously, 'If you want a n neighour, vote Labour') and defeated Gordon Walker on an against-the-grain swing of 7pts. Griffiths was branded a 'parliamentary leper' by Harold Wilson and was comfortably beaten in 1966. Which is the point at which things start to get slightly surreal, because the Labour candidate was Andrew Faulds, a well-known actor who first became politically active at the suggestion of Paul Robeson. Smethwick (which, for the benefit of people who don't know, is pronounced Smeth-ick) ended up taking to Faulds and re-elected him through successive boundary changes until he retired in 1997.

Also Griffiths reappeared as Tory MP for Portsmouth North and lasted until he was defeated in 1997; I don't know to what extent he modified his views.  (Presumably he did modify his campaigning techniques a little.)

[minionofmidas]

Norfolk, of course.

Pshaw, that's clearly Westmorland.

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Norfolk's former rural Labour strength is an amazing thing... what was Norfolk agriculture like, exactly? What exactly happened in 1872? You'll have to tell that story in full someday.

Also, I suppose there's "demographic change in Yarmouth and Lynn" missing in your list of what all is happening in that map.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Norfolk's former rural Labour strength is an amazing thing... what was Norfolk agriculture like, exactly? What exactly happened in 1872? You'll have to tell that story in full someday.

At some point I will do, yeah. The main thing in 1872 was an attempt to form an agricultural labourers union in Warwickshire, which soon spread at an astonishing rate across the countryside. There were strikes and lockouts in farms all over the country for a few years, though things collapsed outside a couple of counties very quickly and the union itself didn't make it to the end of the nineteenth century; the NUAW was founded in 1906 as a replacement. Agricultural trade unionism took off in Norfolk mostly because working conditions - and living conditions - were worse for labourers there than anywhere else in England. Agriculture in Norfolk had become a bastard hybrid of feudalism (the big landlords dominated and they were usually aristocratic, and most Norfolk farm workers lived in tied cottages owned by... yeah) and certain features of the industrial economy; you can probably guess which. Basically a sort of agricultural proletariat developed. Strikes were surprisingly common in Norfolk until the 1930s or so. There was another reason, and that was religion; Norfolk was a stronghold of Primitive Methodism (unusual as the Primitives were mostly a denomination of industrial - especially mining - areas) and the fiery evangelical language used by union activists in 1872 struck a cord there.

All of which led to the strength of the NUAW, which, at its peak, was remarkably effective at getting its members out to vote and to vote Labour. And to remind them that the ballot was secret, obviously.

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Yeah. I go into that a bit in the descriptions which will be up at some point; though I know more about Lynn than Yarmouth.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

1. King's Lynn - rural constituency next to The Wash. The largest town was, of course, King's Lynn, an ancient port and minor railways centre. It also included the small seaside resort of Hunstanton and a huge and very varied agricultural hinterland, from the huge estates in the extremely remote mildly hilly (for Norfolk!) area mostly within Docking RD, to intensive agriculture in the Fens. This was a key marginal that voted for the winning party at every election during this period. Labour's longterm decline was less evident in this constituency than the rest, presumably because King's Lynn was chosen as a town for London overspill.

2. North Norfolk - rural constituency covering almost all of the north coast. The constituency included the resort of Cromer, fishing towns like Sheringham and Wells-next-the-Sea (yeah, really) and the large market town of North Walsham. But politically dominant, until 1970, were the small inland agricultural villages that had the highest rates of NUAW membership in the country; a legacy of especially unpleasant landlords and bitter labour disputes (can't really write 'industrial action' ) in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Until his death shortly before the 1964 election the MP was Edwin Gooch, who had been the President of the NUAW since the twenties, while between 1964 and 1970 the MP was Bert Hazell; an NUAW organiser and its President from 1966 until 1978. Hazell died last year at the age of 101 - he was the second longest living former MP ever. Basically this was only held for so long because Labour had such excellent candidates and eventually the dam burst. Regrettable, but inevitable.

3. South West Norfolk - rural constituency that stretched up from the flat countryside around Downham Market to higher ground (relative term, obviously) and larger estates in the centre of the county. The three main towns were Downham Market, Swaffham and East Dereham; basically all other settlements were tiny. I'm not entirely sure of voting patterns within the constituency, but I'd be surprised if Mitford & Launditch RD wasn't one of the strongest parts of the constituency for Labour (Launditch, one of the most remote and agricultural parts of Norfolk, actually elected a Labour councillor in 2003). Dereham is one of the better parts of Norfolk for Labour these days, but that might not be a good guide for more than the past few decades due to the great movement of the rural poor into market towns which was such a major feature of the post-war period in many rural areas. I will probably check this at some point. This constituency provided the famous electoral example of Norfolk 'doing different' when it became the only seat in the country gained by Labour in the 1955 election. The MP elected that year, Sidney Dye, was killed in a car accident in 1958 (material for conspiracy theorists, perhaps, as he had spent the preceeding days lobbying against a plan to base nuclear weapons in Swaffham), while the MP elected in 1959 was a popular NUAW official. The changes mentioned in the summary finally caught up with Labour in 1964; when the constituency 'did different again, and went Tory.

4. Central Norfolk - initially a rural constituency with a commuting and suburban element, this became dominated by Norwich suburbia (places like Sprowston and so on) by the end of the period. Between 1955 and 1970 its electorate increased by 26,000; large by any standards, but massive for what was a fairly small constituency. Other than that, it was the least interesting constituency in Norfolk; a fairly safe Tory seat that became somewhat safer as new houses were built. Labour did manage to hold Ian Gilmour's majority to below 10% in 1966, but not by much and that was the closest it got.

5. South Norfolk - an oddly shaped rural constituency along the Suffolk border. The main towns were Thetford (the birthplace of Tom Paine), Wymondham and Diss. Diss is perhaps the funniest place name in existence. Even typing that made me smile. This was always a Tory constituency, but 1955 was pretty close and 1966 extremely so; presumably overspill development in Thetford moved the constituency within range in a good year. The constituency actually swung to Labour in 1955, which may be explained by the expulsion of Tory MP Peter Baker from the Commons (the last MP to have suffered that fate, interestingly enough) in 1954; the by-election was rather close as well. Presumably Thetford was the best town for Labour by the 1960s, but other areas in the constituency had radical traditions; particularly the rural area north of Diss (hahaha) and also Wymondham. I'm not sure how well that translated into votes though.

6. Norwich North - a small constituency covering the northern half of the city. Working class and mostly residential it was a safe Labour seat made up of a mixture of older working class districts and newer estates. It was stable in terms of population (the electorate rose by just three thousand between 1955 and 1970) and politics; with the exception of 1966, the majority was always ever so slightly above 20pts.

7. Norwich South - covering the southern half of the city, this was a key marginal that voted with the winning party at every election during this period. A socially mixed constituency that included the city centre, the Tories will have been strongest in middle class suburbs like Eaton and in older middle class residential areas. Labour would have been strongest in the outer estates and in the more working class bits of older parts of the city. The University of East Anglia was established in the constituency in 1963.

8. Yarmouth - based around the fishing port and seaside resort of Great Yarmouth, the constituency included a large rural hinterland (extending as far inland as Blofield; the constituency included the bulk of the Norfolk Broads, with most of the rest being in North Norfolk) and various small seaside resorts such as Gorleston (functionally a part of Yarmouth) and Caister-on-Sea. Yarmouth's fishing industry (based on herring) was already in terminal decline by this point, largely a consequence of over-fishing in the interwar period and changing consumer tastes. Presumably Yarmouth was decent territory for Labour and the outlying areas (seaside resorts included; this being the post-war period) were the best parts for the Tories, though I don't know the area that well at all, so may be wrong. This was a marginal constituency that Labour had difficulty winning, though they did manage to break through in 1966.

[minionofmidas]

According to wikipedia, "when Baker's companies came into financial trouble, he forged signatures on letters purporting to guarantee their debts. This crime was discovered and Baker was subsequently convicted of uttering, forgery and fraud and sentenced to seven years imprisonment. On December 16, 1954, he was expelled from parliament."

"Uttering" is a funny name for a crime. Also, december 16th is my birthday.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I've finished the Manchester Region map. Will post it up when notes for the Manchester (city/cb/whatever) constituencies are finished, whenever that might be. Or might do anyway. Depends.

Have also just finished a North Wales outline map. I'm pretty happy with it, though the Great Orme is a little on the dodgy side.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Manchester and surrounds. The notes for the Manchester constituencies are nearly done and may be up tonight; not sure yet. Anyway, I enjoyed making this set a lot; some of the most interesting election results in the entire period. We tend to think of Liverpool when thinking of huge swings to Labour in the Wilson era, but actually it was seen across the entire North West, though you'll note that even 1959 was better than 1955 in and around Manchester. For people who assume that the 1950s were a heyday of 'pure' class voting from which we have since withdrawn from in the face of social and industrial change, please have a look at the 1955 results in Salford.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Manchester

1. Exchange - as the name hints, this constituency included Manchester city centre and the areas immediately bordering on it; notably Hulme, Ancoats, Chorlton-on-Medlock and Beswick. This was, in other words, a slum constituency. Hulme was especially notorious and became the sight of one of the least successful pieces of redevelopment in the country, the Hulme Crescents. Always a safe Labour seat, it became extremely safe during the 1960s, though slum clearance meant that its population dropped dramatically; its electorate fell from 53,000 in 1955 to just 21,000 in 1970.

2. Ardwick - a working class constituency extending out from the slums of Ardwick and surrounds, through to Longsight, Rusholme and Fallowfield; a gross exaggeration would be to say that the constituency was more working class (and more Labour) the further north you went. Slum clearance in Ardwick and urban decay elsewhere say the electorate fall by around 20,000 during this period. This was surprisingly close in 1955, but a safe Labour seat in all subsequent elections; much as you'd expect. The sharp swing in 1970 might be down to the impact of slum clearance, but is more likely related to the retirement of popular MP Leslie Lever, the brother of Harold Lever and one of those ridiculously admirable people who presumably blunder into politics by accident. His successor was the journalist, Wilson advisor and occasional satirist Gerald Kaufman who is still the MP for the bulk of the area.

3. Cheetham - an utterly working class inner Manchester constituency that was quite diverse in other respects. It was named for Cheetham Hill, a working class district that had historically been the centre of Manchester's Jewish community (tram drivers uses to refer to the main stop there as 'Jerusalem Junction') and which continued in its role as a centre of immigration (mostly from Pakistan) during this period as the Jewish community moved further north. The constituency also included the slums immediately north of the city centre, as well as the slum districts of Miles Platting and Collyhurst and some working class residential areas like Harpurhey. I think Angel Meadow - now there's a name to inspire shuddering - was in this constituency, though IIRC most of that monstrosity had already been cleared. It probably won't come as a surprise to learn that the population of the constituency fell greatly; the electorate was 53,000 in 1955 and 30,000 in 1970. This was, naturally, a very safe Labour seat and was represented throughout this period by Harold Lever.

4. Moss Side - the initial reaction to a constituency with that name being anything other than a safe Labour seat is to recoil in surprise. After which the assumption is that for Moss Side, read Handsworth. Actually, no. Don't do that, although there are similarities. The transformation of Moss Side from petty bourgeois stronghold into a poor working class district happened during the inter-war years (though, of course, it was only post-war that it became the main centre for black immigration in the north of England). The key thing about the Moss Side constituency is that Moss Side itself was not typical of it; rather, the general tone was set by the affluent middle class suburbs of Whalley Range and Chorlton-cum-Hardy. As such, Moss Side was a safe Conservative seat for most of this period; Labour came close in 1966, but not as close as Withington. Yet the swing in 1970 was tiny. And for that, you can (more or less) say that for Moss Side, read Handsworth.

5. Withington - a predominantly middle class (professional rather than managerial) residential constituency, with some better-off working class estates here and there. It covered Withington, Levenshulme, Burnage and West Didsbury; more or less the areas you'd expect, though perhaps not quite. Initially a safe Conservative seat, the massive swing to Labour in the North West in the 1960s was not purely a working class phenomenon, and Withington nearly fell in 1966. Even in 1970 the swing was fairly low, though not as disturbing as in Moss Side. This was also the one constituency in Manchester where the Liberals always put up a candidate. They peaked in 1964 with 23%, but by 1970 had fallen back to 11%.

6. Gorton - despite the name, a majority of this constituency was outside the boundaries of the city. The only part in Manchester proper was Gorton itself; a traditional centre of heavy industry and extremely working class. It's impossible to imagine Gorton not voting strongly Labour, which means that, somewhat extraordinarly, the Tories must have led in the rest of the constituency (the mill towns of Audenshaw and Denton) until 1964, a testament to the pervasive power of the working class Tory tradition in Lancashire. Mostly, anyway. Because the Labour MP until his death in 1967 was Konni Zilliacus. That is, Konni Zilliacus the fellow-travelling Finn who had been Gateshead's Labour MP until thrown out of the Party in 1949, and who then ran (unsuccessfully) as a pro-Soviet independent in the 1950 General Election. I may be wrong, but I get the distinct impression that if he had a personal vote, it was strictly negative. Still, this was a safe seat regardless from the 1960s onwards, as confirmed by the fact that Labour managed to hold it in the by-election sparked by Zilliacus's death. That by-election, for context, was on the same day as Hamilton and Leicester SW. So, yeah.

7. Openshaw - another constituency that included a large area outside the city, though in this case the Manchester element was much more important than Gorton. The core of the constituency were Manchester's eastern industrial suburbs; Bradford, Clayton, Openshaw and Newton Heath. These places, traditional centres of heavy industry and coal mining, had been the first parts of the city to swing to Labour at the dawn of the twentieth century and remained strongholds, the mining district of Bradford especially. Completing the constituency was Failsworth, a large mill town and functionally a Manchester suburb. This was a safe Labour seat throughout the period. From 1963 the MP was Charles Morris, brother of Wythenshawe MP Alf Morris and father of future cabinet minister Estelle Morris.

8. Blackley - a residential constituency covering the suburbs and estates of the far north of the city; Blackley, Charlestown Crumpsall and Moston. Although it had a substantial middle class element at Crumpsall (though, like all areas of its type, its transformation began during this period), this was fundamentally a working class constituency. It was also one of the few in Manchester not to see a substantial population decline during this period, as population lost as a result of further suburbanisation was replaced by new and expanded estates. Although swings were often high it would be wrong to think of Blackley as volatile or as a swing seat; Tory until 1964 (and with a solid majority in 1955), Blackley looked like a safe Labour seat in 1966. The swing in 1970 was above average, yet it was still one that small group of Labour constituencies with a larger majority in 1970 than 1964.

9. Wythenshawe - a suburban constituency covering Manchester's southern tip. Wythenshawe is, of course, a massive suburban estate, so large that it is effectively a municipal New Town. Like most estates of its type it was initially intended for better-off workers (interwar housing strategy in most cities was like this; build new estates for skilled workers, encourage the slum dwellers to move to the houses the skilled workers used to live in. It was a failure as a slum clearance policy for obvious reasons) though there were further developments during this period and I think - though might be wrong - that some of that was due to overspill from slum clearance. You'd expect such a place to vote strongly Labour, yet it had a Tory MP until 1964, a surprising fact even given the strange survivial of working class Toryism across Lancashire until the 1960s. The mystery can be answered by checking the boundaries of the constituency; it crossed the river to take in the bourgeois suburb of Didsbury. Wythenshawe was an easy gain for Alf Morris (a tireless campaigner for the rights of the disabled and the area's MP until his retirement in 1997) and became a safe Labour seat more-or-less automatically.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

Very interesting Al, thank you.

You've mentioned Cheetham Hill and Moss Side as major immigrant centres, but these days the same applies to Longsight and Rusholme of course - was this also a feature of this period or did it happen later?

Also the name "Manchester Exchange" was actually slightly misleading - while the seat did include the city centre with its big cotton and corn exchanges, the railway station of the same name was in Salford East.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You've mentioned Cheetham Hill and Moss Side as major immigrant centres, but these days the same applies to Longsight and Rusholme of course - was this also a feature of this period or did it happen later?

I don't know, actually. I would assume so because both areas had/have the right sort of housing stock and the right sort of housing tenure patterns. I might check this properly if I've a chance.

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Is there a reason why they were so keen on the Exchange names? I suppose it might have been that 'central' isn't really a term you can use wrt Manchester, though that's not stopped them post-1974.