Belfast Pottinger (UK Parliament constituency)

Belfast Pottinger
Former Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
19181922
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

ElectionMemberParty
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

See also

References

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

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

External links