| West Gloucestershire | |
|---|---|
| Former County constituency | |
| for the House of Commons | |
| County | Gloucestershire |
| 1950–1997 | |
| Number of members | One |
| Replaced by | Forest of Dean, Tewkesbury |
| Created from | Forest of Dean |
| 1832–1885 | |
| Number of members | Two |
| Type of constituency | County constituency |
| Created from | Gloucestershire |
West Gloucestershire was a parliamentary constituency in Gloucestershire, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
It was created by the Great Reform Act for the 1832 general election as a 2-seat constituency (i.e. electing two Members of Parliament). It was abolished for the 1885 general election.
A new single-member West Gloucestershire constituency, covering a smaller area, was created for the 1950 general election. It was abolished for the 1997 general election.
Contents |
The 1950 to 1997 single-member constituency was held by the Labour Party from its creation in 1950 until 1979 and then held by the Conservative Party until its abolition.
The constituency was the western division of the historic county of Gloucestershire, in South West England.
The place of election was the small town of Dursley. This was where the hustings were situated and electors voted (by spoken declaration in public, before the secret ballot was introduced in 1872).
The qualification to vote in county elections, in the period, was to be a 40 shilling freeholder.
The parliamentary borough constituencies of Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury were all located in East Gloucestershire. Qualified freeholders from those boroughs could vote in the eastern county division. Bristol was a "county of itself", so its freeholders qualified to vote in the borough, not in a county division.
There were no electors qualified to vote in the western division, because they were freehold owners of land in a parliamentary borough.
The constituency in this period was a smaller part of the county of Gloucestershire than its nineteenth century namesake. It was centred around the Forest of Dean, and indeed the majority of the constituency at abolition formed the new Forest of Dean constituency. About a fifth of the constituency moved to Tewkesbury, with 735 constituents moving to Gloucester.[1]
| Election | 1st Member[2] | 1st Party | 2nd Member[2] | 2nd Party | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1832 | Hon. Grantley Berkeley | Whig | Hon. Augustus Moreton | Whig | ||
| 1835 | The Marquess of Worcester [3] | Conservative | ||||
| 1836 by-election [4] | Robert Blagden Hale | Conservative | ||||
| 1852 | Robert Kingscote [5] | Whig | ||||
| 1857 | Sir John Rolt [6] | Conservative | ||||
| 1859 | Liberal | |||||
| 1867 by-election [7] | Edward Arthur Somerset | Conservative | ||||
| 1868 | Samuel Marling | Liberal | ||||
| 1874 | Hon. Randal Plunkett | Conservative | ||||
| 1880 | Lord Moreton | Liberal | ||||
| 1885 by-election [8] | Benjamin St John Ackers | Conservative | ||||
| 1885 | constituency abolished | |||||
| Election | Member[2] | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950 | Morgan Philips Price | Labour | |
| 1959 | Charles Loughlin | Labour | |
| Oct 1974 | John Watkinson | Labour | |
| 1979 | Paul Marland | Conservative | |
| 1997 | constituency abolished: see Forest of Dean and Tewkesbury | ||
| General Election 1992: Gloucestershire West[9] | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Conservative | Paul Marland | 29,232 | 43.6 | −2.7 | |
| Labour | Mrs DM Organ | 24,274 | 36.2 | +8.4 | |
| Liberal Democrat | Mrs JE Boait | 13,366 | 19.9 | −6.1 | |
| Independent | A Reeve | 172 | 0.3 | +0.3 | |
| Twenty First Century | CR Palmer | 75 | 0.1 | +0.1 | |
| Majority | 4,958 | 7.4 | −11.1 | ||
| Turnout | 67,119 | 83.8 | +2.7 | ||
| Conservative hold | Swing | −5.5 | |||