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Post by islington on May 23, 2023 18:29:24 GMT
There have been a lot of posts on this site, including not a few by me, that have been highly critical of some of the seats that emerge from the boundary-drawing process. So by way of partial redress, and inspired by the appearance today of the all-Scotland maps on the parlconst site, I'd like to call attention to the constituency shown below.
This is Clackmannan & Kinross from the 1885-1918 map, but in fact its boundaries were identical from 1832 to 1885 so it is to the architects of the First Reform that credit is due. And the reason I am impressed is that this, as it stood in 1832, is the underlying pattern of county boundaries with which they had to work. The two maps are on the same scale as close as I could get it: green = Clacks; yellow = Kinross; bluish-green = Perthshire; pink = Stirlingshire; orange = Fife. Note that the area as a whole was a mess of salients and detached parts; moreover, the two tiny counties of Clacks and Kinrosshire, although located in much the same part of Scotland and destined to be linked in the newly-drawn seat, had no common boundary. And yet from this chaos the legislation of 1832 provided for a reasonably compact constituency with no exclaves, no enclaves (unless you count Culross), no ugly salients or indentations, decent internal communications and a very acceptable population. All in all, especially when one has regard to the dreadful underlying administrative map, it's an impressive and actually quite modern-looking bit of boundary-drawing and it enjoyed a deservedly long life, surviving without any alteration from 1832 right through to 1918.
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Post by islington on Jun 9, 2023 13:18:12 GMT
I'm sorry to be a broken record on this subject, but huge congratulations to parlconst on the completion of his project, or at least the first phase of it, celebrated today on his website as found below. For the first time, in any part of the current UK, it is now just a matter of a couple of clicks to bring up a detailed map of constituencies at any time since 1885, something that was formerly a tricky and intricate process replete with possibilities of uncertainty or error. Bravo.
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Post by islington on Jul 3, 2023 11:13:33 GMT
Just for fun, and prompted by the discussion about inappropriate naming on the 2023 Review (Scotland) thread, I'm posting this. It shows the constituency of Liverpool West Derby as it existed 1885-1918. It's the area in the lower part of the map, somewhat left of centre, including the place-names Edge Hill and Kensington. And in the top right corner of the map you can see West Derby itself, far outside the seat bearing its name (actually in the Bootle seat).
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Jul 3, 2023 11:26:10 GMT
Just for fun, and prompted by the discussion about inappropriate naming on the 2023 Review (Scotland) thread, I'm posting this. It shows the constituency of Liverpool West Derby as it existed 1885-1918. It's the area in the lower part of the map, somewhat left of centre, including the place-names Edge Hill and Kensington. And in the top right corner of the map you can see West Derby itself, far outside the seat bearing its name (actually in the Bootle seat).
It actually isn't that misleading: the area was in the former parish of West Derby (although so were a lot of other places). And of course all of Liverpool was/is in the hundred of West Derby.
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Aug 29, 2023 14:56:56 GMT
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parlconst
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Post by parlconst on Aug 29, 2023 17:35:12 GMT
Thanks for these - very valuable resource. Within Northern Ireland, there a few small differences with the boundaries I compiled. I will look at these in more detail over the next few days and let you have any comments by private message.
One anomaly I've spotted for the 1918-22 boundaries within Belfast is that you seem to have a significant overlap between Duncairn and Shankill constituencies. I believe that Duncairn is correct, but I will double check once I get the time to do so.
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Post by islington on Aug 29, 2023 18:10:45 GMT
I am guessing that these are excellent but, alas, it must remain a guess because I've no idea how to open them.
I can log in to google drive and I then get offered a list of apps (ZIP extractor, &c) but I don't know which is best to choose; nor do I know which of the six file formats is best (.cpg, .dbf, &c).
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parlconst
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Post by parlconst on Aug 29, 2023 18:47:35 GMT
I am guessing that these are excellent but, alas, it must remain a guess because I've no idea how to open them.
I can log in to google drive and I then get offered a list of apps (ZIP extractor, &c) but I don't know which is best to choose; nor do I know which of the six file formats is best (.cpg, .dbf, &c).
These are based on the shapefile format (.shp). You need to extract the contents of any given set to a folder, keeping them together. Then if you drag the .shp file from the relevant folder to, say, QGIS, it automatically links to the supplementary information contained within the other files in the folder, and should display the boundaries and other information, subject to any formatting you may wish to choose.
While I started on parlconst using shapefiles (.shp), I've now become a convert to the geopackage format (.gpkg), which contains everything within the one file.
Web based applications (such as the zoomable and downloadable maps on the parlconst website) tend to require geojson format, which seems to be slow and cumbersome to manipulate, so if you ever download something in that format from a web-based map, make sure you convert it to either .shp or .gkpg before trying to do anything with it.
Sorry if this sounds Double Dutch, but once you get the hang of it it is reasonably straightforward.
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Aug 29, 2023 22:32:44 GMT
Thanks for these - very valuable resource. Within Northern Ireland, there a few small differences with the boundaries I compiled. I will look at these in more detail over the next few days and let you have any comments by private message.
One anomaly I've spotted for the 1918-22 boundaries within Belfast is that you seem to have a significant overlap between Duncairn and Shankill constituencies. I believe that Duncairn is correct, but I will double check once I get the time to do so.
Thanks for that - have corrected the overlap and uploaded the corrected version.
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maxque
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Post by maxque on Aug 29, 2023 22:34:28 GMT
Talking of wierd historical boundaries, I've noticed that the 1950-1974 Dudley constituency wasn't contiguous. It was made of Dudley and Stourbridge, with Brierley Hill constituency separating the two parts.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Aug 29, 2023 22:55:12 GMT
Talking of wierd historical boundaries, I've noticed that the 1950-1974 Dudley constituency wasn't contiguous. It was made of Dudley and Stourbridge, with Brierley Hill constituency separating the two parts. Although a county borough and surrounded on all sides by Staffordshire, Dudley was still held to be part of Worcestershire for parliamentary purposes.
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Harry Hayfield
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Post by Harry Hayfield on Aug 30, 2023 6:11:08 GMT
Historical Boundaries are a key element of the Vision of Britain website however they are listed as "restricted access" which says the following: "This is where you can download parts of the data behind A Vision of Britain through Time, for use in your own projects. Most of this is freely available for everyone to use, under Creative Commons licensing. Other material can be downloaded only by users in UK schools, colleges and universities. We do not maintain our own list of registered users, so your institution needs to belong to the UK Federation. If you are not in the Federation, we are very happy to discuss data licensing. Contact us at gbhgis@port.ac.uk." They only cover England, Scotland and Wales but have constituency maps going back to the Great Reform Act, along with counties (up to 1971 in England, 1911 in England and Wales, 1951 in Scotland), districts (covering the same time frame), and parishes up to 1971 in England and Wales and Scotland up to 1951 www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data/
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2023 9:05:47 GMT
Historical Boundaries are a key element of the Vision of Britain website however they are listed as "restricted access" which says the following: "This is where you can download parts of the data behind A Vision of Britain through Time, for use in your own projects. Most of this is freely available for everyone to use, under Creative Commons licensing. Other material can be downloaded only by users in UK schools, colleges and universities. We do not maintain our own list of registered users, so your institution needs to belong to the UK Federation. If you are not in the Federation, we are very happy to discuss data licensing. Contact us at gbhgis@port.ac.uk." They only cover England, Scotland and Wales but have constituency maps going back to the Great Reform Act, along with counties (up to 1971 in England, 1911 in England and Wales, 1951 in Scotland), districts (covering the same time frame), and parishes up to 1971 in England and Wales and Scotland up to 1951 www.visionofbritain.org.uk/data/Yes, but their constituency maps actually aren't all that good; for the period since 1885 our good friend parlconst is immeasurably superior.
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2023 9:33:52 GMT
I am guessing that these are excellent but, alas, it must remain a guess because I've no idea how to open them. I can log in to google drive and I then get offered a list of apps (ZIP extractor, &c) but I don't know which is best to choose; nor do I know which of the six file formats is best (.cpg, .dbf, &c).
These are based on the shapefile format (.shp). You need to extract the contents of any given set to a folder, keeping them together. Then if you drag the .shp file from the relevant folder to, say, QGIS, it automatically links to the supplementary information contained within the other files in the folder, and should display the boundaries and other information, subject to any formatting you may wish to choose. While I started on parlconst using shapefiles (.shp), I've now become a convert to the geopackage format (.gpkg), which contains everything within the one file. Web based applications (such as the zoomable and downloadable maps on the parlconst website) tend to require geojson format, which seems to be slow and cumbersome to manipulate, so if you ever download something in that format from a web-based map, make sure you convert it to either .shp or .gkpg before trying to do anything with it. Sorry if this sounds Double Dutch, but once you get the hang of it it is reasonably straightforward.
Thanks. More Greek than Double Dutch, by which I mean I could understand bits of it (but not the whole). I couldn't see .gpkg so I used .shp and in QGIS this has given me an outline map of a greyed-out Ireland showing (in this example) the 1885 boundaries. It's scalable and pretty detailed but there's no background, so the Belfast area, for instance, looks like this: How can I do better? For instance, by getting an OSM background rather than the uniform grey? Edited to add: I've been playing further and I've now got the map to appear with blue lines on a white background, which is pleasanter to look at; and I've got OSM also to appear showing the same locations at the same scale as I scroll around the map. But I have to flick from one to the other; I don't know how to get the outline map to sit on top of OSM. Edited further to add: But I've already learned something I hadn't realized before, which is that when you look between Dublin and Belfast without changing the scale, the boundary of Dublin PB in 1885 was absurdly tightly drawn in comparison with Belfast. Belfast -
Dublin at the same scale -
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parlconst
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Post by parlconst on Aug 30, 2023 10:12:28 GMT
To get an outline map to sit on top of OSM within QGIS, just make sure that it is before the OSM layer in the Layers Panel within QGIS. If it isn't you can just drag to rearrange.
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2023 10:22:32 GMT
To get an outline map to sit on top of OSM within QGIS, just make sure that it is before the OSM layer in the Layers Panel within QGIS. If it isn't you can just drag to rearrange. You mean like this ...? What this shows is the way that Dublin's 1885 boundary has been utterly swamped by the growth of the modern city (whereas Belfast's 1885 boundary remains a reasonable approximation of the city as it is today).
Thanks hugely for assistance with this.
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2023 12:59:30 GMT
Well, now I can see these they are indeed superb. Congrats. Just one small query: in the 1918 map at co-ordinate 333757, 369806, a place apparently called Moreland's Meadow on the Lagan on the southern edge of Belfast, you show a small detached part of (I assume) Belfast (Ormeau). Is this an error? The corresponding map by @parlcost has this area as part of Mid Down.
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Post by andrewteale on Aug 30, 2023 13:56:48 GMT
Well, now I can see these they are indeed superb. Congrats. Just one small query: in the 1918 map at co-ordinate 333757, 369806, a place apparently called Moreland's Meadow on the Lagan on the southern edge of Belfast, you show a small detached part of (I assume) Belfast (Ormeau). Is this an error? The corresponding map by parlconst has this area as part of Mid Down. It's not an error, no. For some reason Moreland's Meadow wasn't included within Belfast at this point in time: it was a detached part of Lisburn Rural District and thus presumably part of South Antrim in 1918-22. parlconst appears to have overlooked it. Nicholas Whyte wrote something on this anomaly a few years back: nwhyte.livejournal.com/2754361.html
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Post by islington on Aug 30, 2023 14:18:01 GMT
Well, now I can see these they are indeed superb. Congrats. Just one small query: in the 1918 map at co-ordinate 333757, 369806, a place apparently called Moreland's Meadow on the Lagan on the southern edge of Belfast, you show a small detached part of (I assume) Belfast (Ormeau). Is this an error? The corresponding map by parlconst has this area as part of Mid Down. It's not an error, no. For some reason Moreland's Meadow wasn't included within Belfast at this point in time: it was a detached part of Lisburn Rural District and thus presumably part of South Antrim in 1918-22. parlconst appears to have overlooked it. Nicholas Whyte wrote something on this anomaly a few years back: nwhyte.livejournal.com/2754361.htmlHow splendid.
So one assumes that in Parliamentary terms it was a detached part of S Antrim 1918-22, then Antrim 1922-50, then S Antrim again until, again one assumes, 1974 when the boundaries of Belfast S were extended beyond the (then) city limit.
I'm sure I'm not alone on this site in finding this kind of thing impossibly gratifying.
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parlconst
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Post by parlconst on Aug 30, 2023 15:23:15 GMT
Well, now I can see these they are indeed superb. Congrats. Just one small query: in the 1918 map at co-ordinate 333757, 369806, a place apparently called Moreland's Meadow on the Lagan on the southern edge of Belfast, you show a small detached part of (I assume) Belfast (Ormeau). Is this an error? The corresponding map by parlconst has this area as part of Mid Down. It's not an error, no. For some reason Moreland's Meadow wasn't included within Belfast at this point in time: it was a detached part of Lisburn Rural District and thus presumably part of South Antrim in 1918-22. parlconst appears to have overlooked it. Nicholas Whyte wrote something on this anomaly a few years back: nwhyte.livejournal.com/2754361.htmlThanks for this - I will update the parlconst site when I get chance. I've not yet had an opportunity to look at obsie maps in great detail, but from a quick analysis there a number of small differences from what is currently on the parlconst website. I suspect that the obsie version is correct, as I really struggled to find reliable information for Ireland. That said, I messaged obsie about one major error that I discovered in his/her maps (in addition to Belfast Shankill 1918-22, which has now been corrected).
Today I received from the House of Commons Library a long awaited package of suggested corrections to British constituency boundaries. It will take me some time to work my way through their comments, so it may be a little while before I can update the Irish pages.
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