Tag Archives: Constituencies

Reappraising England’s reformed electoral map, 1832-1868: the impact of the 1832 Reform Act

As part of our series reflecting on the recent ‘Politics before Democracy’ conference, Dr Martin Spychal, a Senior Research Fellow on the 1832-1868 Commons project, discusses the impact of the 1832 reform legislation on English electoral politics. At the 2023 Politics … Continue reading

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Surveying the UK’s parliamentary boroughs: map-making and the 1831-2 boundary commissions

To coincide with the publication of the initial proposals of the 2023 English boundary commission and the Society for One-Place Studies recent focus on maps, our research fellow, Dr Martin Spychal, explores the city and town plans created by the … Continue reading

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York: exploring the local history of a Victorian constituency

This blog, which explains some of the key features of our constituency articles, and how they might be of use to those interested in the history of a particular locality, originally appeared on the main History of Parliament’s blog. To … Continue reading

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The University of London, representation and the 1867 Reform Act

Last week, as part of UK Parliament Week, we held a special event with the University of London to mark the 150th anniversary of the university returning its first MP to parliament. At the 1868 general election all University of … Continue reading

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The mathematics of Victorian representation: part 1

In this new series of posts, we look at the Victorian multi-member constituencies that predated the UK’s current electoral system and highlight the mathematical challenges they pose for historians. The first-past-the-post system of electing MPs has long been viewed as … Continue reading

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Constituencies recently added to our preview site

The 1832-68 House of Commons project includes studies of every constituency – more than 400 – in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Since beginning our research in 2009, we have completed over 100 constituency articles. Around 4,000 to 6,000 words … Continue reading

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Constituencies available on our preview site

The 1832 Reform Act completely redrew the electoral map of Britain and Ireland. It removed many small corrupt boroughs and gave representation to growing industrial towns such as Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds. However, small towns and county seats remained the … Continue reading

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