Seaham (UK Parliament constituency)

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Seaham County constituency
Created:	1918
Abolished:	1950
Type:	House of Commons
Members:	one

Seaham was a parliamentary constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was in existence between 1918 and 1950. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. Incorporating a lot of the mining area of the eastern part of County Durham, it has a history of strong Labour Party support.

1 History
2 Members of Parliament
3 References
4 See also

[edit] History

In the so-called Coupon Election of 1918, Major E. Hayward was elected for the Liberals. By the next general election, in 1922, Sidney Webb, an early socialist and author of the Labour Party's then-new constitution, was returned. Webb was easily re-elected in 1923 and 1924. Sidney Webb was raised to the peerage and his successor in the parliamentary constituency was James Ramsay Macdonald, the leader of the Labour Party at the time. At the 1929 general election, Macdonald won and for the second time became Prime Minister over a minority Labour administration.

The economic crisis after 1929 led to a political crisis in mid-1931 and Macdonald failed to secure agreement in cabinet for his proposed cuts in 'outdoor relief' for the unemployed. Macdonald went to see King George V who persuaded him to form a National Government. In the General Election that followed Macdonald stood in Seaham as National Labour and was comfortably elected and continued to serve as a Prime Minister of a National Government that was predominantly Conservative-supported.

In the general election of 1935, Macdonald, as National Labour was resoundingly defeated at Seaham by Emanuel Shinwell, the official candidate of the Labour Party and Macdonald resigned as Prime Minister. Shinwell was re-elected in the Labour landslide at the 1945 election, and served as MP for Easington, the constituency that replaced Seaham after 1950.

[edit] Members of Parliament

Year		Member	Party
	1918	Evan Hayward	Labour
	1922	Sidney Webb	Labour
	1929	Ramsay Macdonald	Labour
	1931	Ramsay Macdonald	Naional Labour
	1935	Manny Shinwell	Labour
1950		constituency abolished