Finsbury (UK Parliament constituency)

The parliamentary borough of Finsbury was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1885, and from 1918 to 1950. The constituency created in 1832 included part of the county of Middlesex north of the City of London and was named after the Finsbury division of the Ossulstone hundred. The 1918 constituency corresponded to the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury within the County of London.

History

History 1832-1885

The original constituency was created by the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832, which carried into effect the redistribution of parliamentary seats under the Reform Act 1832.

Finsbury in the Metropolitan area, 1868-85

Finsbury in the Parliamentary County of London, 1918-50

It was originally proposed that the constituency would comprise the entire Finsbury Division and a number of adjoining parishes in the Holborn Division of Ossulstone, one of the hundreds of Middlesex. The commissioners appointed under the Boundaries Act decided to exclude the northern part of the Finsbury Division, which extended as far as Friern Barnet, some nine miles from London and a largely rural area. They could find no natural boundary to separate "the Rural from the Town District" and suggested that the dividing line should run through the northern section of Islington, following the boundaries formed for Church of England ecclesiastical districts. The seat as eventually created included the whole of Islington, however.^[1]

The parliamentary borough was defined in Schedule O of the Boundaries Act as:

The several Parishes of Saint Luke, Saint George the Martyr, St Giles in the Fields, Saint George Bloomsbury, Saint Mary Stoke Newington, and St. Mary, Islington; the several Liberties or Places of Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Ely Rents, Ely Place, the Rolls, Glass House Yard, and the Charter House; Lincolns Inn and Grays Inn; the Parish of St. James and St. John Clerkenwell, except that Part thereof which is situate to the North of the Parish of Islington; those Parts of the respective Parishes of Saint Sepulchre and Saint Andrew Holborn and of Furnivals Inn and Staple Inn respectively, which are situated without the Liberty of the City of London.

The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 divided the constituency, by then highly populated, into seven new single member constituencies. Four were divisions of a new Parliamentary Borough of Islington; while the Finsbury Parliamentary Borough was divided into three, named Central Division, East Division and Holborn Division.

History 1918-1950

The Representation of the People Act 1918 created a new single-member Finsbury Parliamentary borough in the County of London, identical to the Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury. In 1950, it was merged with the neighbouring borough of Shoreditch to become Shoreditch and Finsbury.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1832-1885

The parliamentary borough returned two members of parliament

MPs 1918-1950

The borough was a single-member constituency.

Elections

Elections in the 1910s

H.E.A. Cotton

• endorsed by the Coalition Government

Elections in the 1920s

A.H. Scott

Elections in the 1930s

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;

• Labour: George Saville Woods^[9]
• National Labour: Frederick Frank Arthur Burden

Elections in the 1940s

References

• Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 (2 & 3 Will. 4 c.64)
• Representation of the People Act 1918 (7 & 8 Geo. 5 c.64)
• Youngs, F. A., Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol.1, Southern England, London, 1979
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "F"