Dudley (UK Parliament constituency)

Dudley
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1832–February 1974
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Dudley East Dudley West

Dudley was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Dudley in Worcestershire (now in the West Midlands).

It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

History

The borough of Dudley returned two members to Parliament in 1294, Benedict Andrew and Ralph Clerk de Duddlegh, but not to any subsequent one.^[1]

The constituency was created by the Reform Act 1832 for the 1832 general election. It was abolished for the February 1974 general election, when it was replaced by the new Dudley East and Dudley West constituencies, which expanded beyond the town's historic boundaries to include Coseley and part of Sedgley in Dudley East (previously in the old Bilston constituency), as well as Kingswinford, Brierley Hill, and the remainder of Sedgley in Dudley West. All of these areas had been incorporated into the Dudley borough in 1966.^[2]

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1832	Sir John Campbell	Whig
	1834	Thomas Hawkes
	1844	John Benbow
	1855	Sir Stafford Henry Northcote	Conservative
	1857	Henry Brinsley Sheridan	Liberal
	1886	Brooke Robinson	Conservative
	1906	Arthur George Hooper	Liberal
	1910	Sir Arthur Griffith-Boscawen	Conservative
	1921 by-election	James Wilson	Labour
	1922	Cyril Lloyd	Conservative
	1929	Oliver Baldwin	Labour
	1931	Dudley Joel	Conservative
	1941 by-election	Cyril Lloyd	Conservative
	1945	George Wigg	Labour
	1968 by-election	Donald Williams	Conservative
	1970	John Gilbert	Labour
Feb 1974		constituency abolished: see Dudley East and Dudley West

Election results

Elections in the 1900s

A.G. Hooper

General Election 1906 Dudley^[3]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Arthur George Hooper	8,296	52.4	+4.8
	Conservative	Gilbert Henry Claughton	7,542	47.6	-4.8
Majority			754	4.8	9.6
Turnout				90.2	+12.4
	Liberal gain from Conservative		Swing	+4.8

Griffith-Boscawen

December 1910 General Election: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Arthur Griffith-Boscawen	8,260
	Liberal	Arthur George Hooper	7,900
Majority			360
	Conservative gain from Liberal		Swing
Turnout

Elections in the 1910s

General Election 1918: Dudley^[4]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Lt-Col Sir Arthur Sackville Trevor Griffith-Boscawen	9,126	60.2
	Labour	William Bridgland Steer	6,048	39.8
Majority			3,080	20.4
Turnout				60.4
	Unionist hold		Swing

endorsed by the Coalition Government

Elections in the 1920s

Dudley by-election, 1921^[5]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	James Wilson	10,244	50.7
	Unionist	Rt Hon Sir Arthur Sackville Trevor Griffith-Boscawen
Majority
Turnout				79.9
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing

General Election 1922: Dudley^[6]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Cyril Edward Lloyd	12,876	60.2
	Labour	James Wilson	8,522	39.8
Majority			4,354	20.4
Turnout				82.5
	Unionist gain from Labour		Swing

General Election 1923: Dudley^[7]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Cyril Edward Lloyd	10,227	49.4
	Liberal	F J Ballard	8,510	41.1
	Labour	R F Smith	1,958	9.5
Majority			1,717	8.3
Turnout				78.9
	Unionist hold		Swing

General Election 1924: Dudley^[8]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Cyril Edward Lloyd	11,199	52.1
	Labour	Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin	10,314	47.9
Majority			885	4.2
Turnout				80.2
	Unionist hold		Swing

General Election 1929: Dudley^[9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin	13,551	47.6	-0.3
	Unionist	Cyril Edward Lloyd	10,508	36.9
	Liberal	T. I. Clough	4,399	15.5
Majority
Turnout				81.6
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1931: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Dudley Jack Barnato Joel	16,009	56.94
	Labour	W Hodgkiss	12,105	43.06
Majority			3,904	13.89
Turnout				80.75
	Conservative gain from Labour		Swing

General Election 1935: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Dudley Jack Barnato Joel	13,958	54.81
	Labour	Rt Hon. William Wedgwood Benn	11,509	45.19
Majority			2,449	9.62
Turnout				75.29
	Conservative hold		Swing

Elections in the 1940s

General Election 1939/40

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the Autumn of 1939, the following candidates had been selected;

Conservative: Dudley Jack Barnato Joel
Labour: Leonard Freedman^[10]

Dudley by-election, 1941
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Cyril Edward Lloyd
	Independent
Majority
Turnout
	Conservative hold		Swing

General Election 1945: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	15,439	62.77
	Conservative	Esme Tatton Cecil Brinton	9,156	37.23
Majority			6,283	25.55
Turnout				73.81
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing

Elections in the 1950s

General Election 1950: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	32,856	54.62
	Conservative	Roy Alexander Farran	19,825	32.96
	Liberal	Bertram Samuel White	7,470	12.42
Majority			13,031	21.66
Turnout				86.83
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1951: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	34,376	58.36
	Conservative	Harold Benjamin Soref	24,525	41.64
Majority			9,851	16.72
Turnout				83.65
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1955: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	31,384	54.87
	Conservative	Thomas Douglas Wilson	20,333	35.55
	Liberal	Wallace Leslie Lawler	5,479	9.58
Majority			11,051	19.32
Turnout				79.83
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1959: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	31,826	54.94
	Conservative	Frank E. Spiller	26,101	45.06
Majority			5,725	9.88
Turnout				79.54
	Labour hold		Swing

Elections in the 1960s

General Election 1964: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	30,250	53.20
	Conservative	David Arthur Russell Howell	19,980	35.02
	Liberal	Robert CS Fowler	6,829	11.97
Majority			10,270	18.00
Turnout				76.53
	Labour hold		Swing

General Election 1966: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Rt Hon. George Edward Cecil Wigg	32,693	59.1
	Conservative	William Donald Williams	22,671	40.9
Majority			10,022	18.1
Turnout			55,364	73.9
	Labour hold		Swing

Dudley by-election, 1968
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	William Donald Williams	28,016	58.1	+17.2
	Labour	John William Gilbert	16,360	34.0	−25.1
	Liberal	Derek Bird	3,809	7.9	N/A
Majority			11,656	24.2	N/A
Turnout			48,185	63.5	-10.4
	Conservative gain from Labour		Swing	+21.2

General Election 1970: Dudley
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	John William Gilbert	29,499	50.29
	Conservative	William Donald Williams	29,163	49.71
Majority			336	0.57
Turnout				71.92
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing

References

↑ Treadway Russell Nash, History and Antiquities of the County of Worcester I (1781), introduction, xxxii.
↑ "Dudley CB/MB through time". Vision of Britain. Retrieved 19 November 2013.
↑ British parliamentary election results, 1885-1918 (Craig)
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
↑ Report of the Annual Conference of the Labour Party, 1939

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 3)