Belfast Pottinger (UK Parliament constituency)

Belfast Pottinger
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1918–1922
Number of members	one
Replaced by	Belfast East
Created from	Belfast East

Pottinger, a division of Belfast, was a UK parliamentary constituency in Ireland. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1922, using the first past the post electoral system.

Boundaries and Boundary Changes

This constituency comprised the south-western half of East Belfast, and contained the then Pottinger ward of Belfast Corporation.^[1]

Prior to the 1918 general election and after the dissolution of Parliament in 1922 the area was part of the Belfast East constituency.

Politics

The constituency was a strongly unionist area, with some Labour support. Sinn Féin demonstrated republican weakness in the seat by receiving only 393 votes, in the 1918 election.

The First Dáil

Sinn Féin contested the general election of 1918 on the platform that instead of taking up any seats they won in the United Kingdom Parliament, they would establish a revolutionary assembly in Dublin. In republican theory every MP elected in Ireland was a potential Deputy to this assembly. In practice only the Sinn Féin members accepted the offer.

The revolutionary First Dáil assembled on 21 January 1919 and last met on 10 May 1921. The First Dáil, according to a resolution passed on 10 May 1921, was formally dissolved on the assembling of the Second Dáil. This took place on 16 August 1921.

In 1921 Sinn Féin decided to use the UK authorised elections for the Northern Ireland House of Commons and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as a poll for the Irish Republic's Second Dáil. This constituency was, in republican theory, incorporated in a four-member Dáil constituency of Belfast East.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1918	Herbert Dixon	Irish Unionist
	May 1921		Ulster Unionist
1922			constituency abolished

Elections

General Election 1918: Belfast Pottinger
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Unionist	Herbert Dixon	8,574	70.63	N/A
	Belfast Labour	Samuel Clarke Porter	2,513	20.70	N/A
	Independent Labour	James Henry Bennett	659	5.43	N/A
	Sinn Féin	Bernard Campbell	393	3.24	N/A
Majority			6,061	49.93	N/A
Turnout			17,084	71.05	N/A
	Irish Unionist gain from new seat		Swing	N/A

References

↑ Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918, Second Schedule, Part I

Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume III 1919–1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1979)
(Information about boundaries of the constituency derived from the map of Northern Ireland Parliament constituencies (in force from 1921) and the wards included in the Belfast UK Parliament seats (in force 1922) for which see Northern Ireland Parliamentary Election Results 1921–1972, by Sydney Elliott (Political Reference Publications 1973) and Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885–1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1972) respective

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "P" (part 2)