YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Aug 30, 2023 17:39:33 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. There were still a few in that period. That one, East Flintshire and East Dunbartonshire were because of counties which had detached parts. Then there were still some District of Burghs type seats in Scotland, Kirkcaldy Burghs and Dunfermline Burghs in Fife, and also Stirling & Falkirk, which wasn't named in the same way but was similar in practice. And those created detached parts in their neighbouring seats too: West Fife appears to have been in four pieces, because of bits cut off from the main body by the Burghs seats. Elsewhere in England, Don Valley included all of Doncaster RD, but that contained one parish (Denaby, i.e. the village of Old Denaby, not to be confused with Denaby Main) which was an exclave separated from it by Conisbrough and Mexborough UDs and part of Rotherham RD. The two UDs were in Dearne Valley and Rotherham RD was in Rother Valley, so Denaby parish was a detached part of the constituency as well. I suspect there may have been other examples like this, but you have to look quite carefully to find them. Even today, if you look closely at a constituency map you will see that there is a small (unpopulated, I think) area on the south bank of the River Yare which is in Norwich North but separated from the rest of it by the river being in Norwich South. And, as much discussed, the BCE have created a new one in Cambridgeshire. |
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Aug 30, 2023 19:01:25 GMT
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.
It was all part of the townland of Malone Upper which was originally outside the Belfast municipal borough boundary but which had a chunk incorporated into the parliamentary boundary in 1885 which boundary then became the county borough boundary in 1898, resulting in two Malone Upper townlands, one inside and one outside the county borough.
Map showing new wards in expanded Belfast City (1973)
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Post by parlconst on Aug 31, 2023 9:01:33 GMT
My sincere apologies to obsie. I think I must have been having a brainstorm yesterday, as the other 'error' I said I messaged him about, was a figment of my imagination. Once again many thanks to obsie for sharing these Irish boundary files. |
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Post by islington on Aug 31, 2023 11:24:43 GMT
How 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.
It was all part of the townland of Malone Upper which was originally outside the Belfast municipal borough boundary but which had a chunk incorporated into the parliamentary boundary in 1885 which boundary then became the county borough boundary in 1898, resulting in two Malone Upper townlands, one inside and one outside the county borough.
Er ... (raises hand respectfully) The map posted by obsie above, if I'm interpreting it aright, and the 1885-1918 map on the parlconst site, both show that the northern part of Galwally township (in Knockbreda parish, Co Down) was brought within Belfast PB in 1885. But the map (below) prepared by the 1885 Irish boundary commission clearly shows Galwally as being outside the proposed extended PB.
 I've also checked the list of townlands added to Belfast PB in the 1885 Act and Galwally is definitely not among them. OS maps from the period on PRONI make it clear that the northern part of Galwally was included within Belfast CB when the city boundary was extended in 1898, but so far as I can see they don't show the PB boundary. And finally there's this, dating apparently from 1913 and showing the relationship at that time between the municipal boundary (red) and the Parliamentary boundary (blue), the latter excluding Galwally. (Note also the treatment of Moreland's Meadow on this map.)
 So I humbly suggest, pace both obsie and parlconst , that Galwally was not within Belfast PB between 1885 and 1918 (although its northern part was included within the municipal boundary from 1898). Moreland's Meadow, on the other hand, was within the PB between these years, although the 1885-1918 map on parlconst shows it as being outside. |
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Post by johnloony on Aug 31, 2023 12:48:37 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.
That's more like Quintuple Navajo. How do I "extract the contents of any given set to a folder"? How do I "drag the .shp file from the relevant folder to QGIS"? (I know what "drag" means) What is "QGIS"? As a revolutionary idea, would it be possible for someone to actually do something to those things so that they can appear as normal maps than normal humans can, er, just click on to look at? |
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Post by islington on Aug 31, 2023 15:43:27 GMT
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.
That's more like Quintuple Navajo. How do I "extract the contents of any given set to a folder"? How do I "drag the .shp file from the relevant folder to QGIS"? (I know what "drag" means) What is "QGIS"? As a revolutionary idea, would it be possible for someone to actually do something to those things so that they can appear as normal maps than normal humans can, er, just click on to look at? Let me try with this because I'm very much feeling my way myself. To view the maps you need to download a suitable mapping software system, and QGIS has the supreme quality of being free. (And I've no idea what QGIS stands for. I'd hazard Quality Geographical Information System but this is a wild guess and probably wrong.)
Clicking obsie's links opened the documents in Google Drive, and when I'd logged into that I could then use the Google Drive Document Viewer to download the files. I then just dragged the .shp file from Downloads to QGIS (which I had sitting on my desktop) and voila! Well, almost. I still had to fiddle a bit with QGIS to improve the appearance of the shapefiles and I needed a steer kindly provided by parlconst to project the shapefiles onto a helpful background such as OSM. (OSM = Open Street Map; it is a worldwide online map that you can access via QGIS.)
But it was all worth it. The maps are splendid. |
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obsie
Non-Aligned
Posts: 866
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Post by obsie on Aug 31, 2023 15:48:58 GMT
It was all part of the townland of Malone Upper which was originally outside the Belfast municipal borough boundary but which had a chunk incorporated into the parliamentary boundary in 1885 which boundary then became the county borough boundary in 1898, resulting in two Malone Upper townlands, one inside and one outside the county borough.
Er ... (raises hand respectfully) The map posted by obsie above, if I'm interpreting it aright, and the 1885-1918 map on the parlconst site, both show that the northern part of Galwally township (in Knockbreda parish, Co Down) was brought within Belfast PB in 1885. But the map (below) prepared by the 1885 Irish boundary commission clearly shows Galwally as being outside the proposed extended PB.
I've also checked the list of townlands added to Belfast PB in the 1885 Act and Galwally is definitely not among them. OS maps from the period on PRONI make it clear that the northern part of Galwally was included within Belfast CB when the city boundary was extended in 1898, but so far as I can see they don't show the PB boundary. And finally there's this, dating apparently from 1913 and showing the relationship at that time between the municipal boundary (red) and the Parliamentary boundary (blue), the latter excluding Galwally. (Note also the treatment of Moreland's Meadow on this map.)
So I humbly suggest, pace both obsie and parlconst , that Galwally was not within Belfast PB between 1885 and 1918 (although its northern part was included within the municipal boundary from 1898). Moreland's Meadow, on the other hand, was within the PB between these years, although the 1885-1918 map on parlconst shows it as being outside. Corrected and updated on Google Drive. Thanks. |
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Post by islington on Sept 6, 2023 10:06:51 GMT
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.
That's more like Quintuple Navajo. How do I "extract the contents of any given set to a folder"? How do I "drag the .shp file from the relevant folder to QGIS"? (I know what "drag" means) What is "QGIS"? As a revolutionary idea, would it be possible for someone to actually do something to those things so that they can appear as normal maps than normal humans can, er, just click on to look at? Here you go, then (with thanks to obsie ): Dublin and environs 1885 
Dublin and environs 1918 (at the same scale)
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Post by islington on Sept 6, 2023 11:19:41 GMT
And similar maps for Belfast. These are to the same scale as the Dublin maps and it's interesting to contrast the approach taken in Ireland's two biggest cities, especially the way that although each city had four seats in 1885, Belfast's covered a much wider geographical area than Dublin's. 1885:  1918: 
I never cease to be amazed at the fact that Belfast, even if only briefly (1918-1922 Parliament only), returned nine MPs.
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Post by islington on Sept 7, 2023 7:52:09 GMT
Here's the all-Ireland map for 1885 (thanks again to obsie ). There are 101 territorial MPs elected from 100 constituencies (Cork City is a double seat). Except for seats in Dublin and Belfast (for which see the larger maps posted yesterday), I think all the seats are discernible on this map: even the borough seats are mostly a fair size, apart from Derry and Newry (but even these can still be seen on the map).
And finally, all-Ireland 1918. Again we have 101 territorial MPs from 100 constituencies (Cork City with two seats). It's not dissimilar from the previous map, but Belfast is increased from 4 seats to 9, Dublin City from 4 to 7, Co Down from 4 to 5, and Co Dublin from 2 to 4. This amounts to 11 additional seats for these areas, which are found by abolishing the three smallest boroughs (Galway, Kilkenny, Newry) and reducing 8 counties by one seat each - King's (Offaly), Leitrim, Longford, Louth, Queen's (Laois), Tyrone, Waterford, Westmeath.
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Sept 7, 2023 15:46:17 GMT
50 constituencies were unchanged.
Another group were modified only slightly as a knock-on effect of changes in adjoining counties: South Antrim gained (largely uninhabited) parts of several townlands which fell outside the Belfast CB boundary along with the part of Lisburn south of the Lagan; South Armagh gained the part of Newry borough outside the urban district in County Armagh; South Mayo gained the part of Ross barony moved from Galway to Mayo in 1898; South Roscommon gained the Rosmoylan DED from North Galway; East Clare gained the part of Leitrim barony moved from Galway to Clare; East Tipperary gained the parts of Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir on the south side of the river from Waterford; South Wexford gained the part of New Ross on the Kilkenny side of the Barrow; East Wicklow gained Little Bray from South Dublin.
Some post-1898 county boundary changes weren't reflected in the 1918 constituencies even where there were mergers of constituencies, so the west side of Athlone remained in South Roscommon and Graiguecullen remained in the new Queen's County seat even though it had been in County Carlow since 1898.
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Post by islington on Feb 11, 2024 17:22:46 GMT
I've been trying to piece together the way boundaries were redrawn in 1945 and 1950. My current stab at the correct sequence of events is as follows. It is based on information drawn from several different sources so I'd be very grateful if anyone better informed can confirm or correct it. - House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1944 - Enacted by cross-party agreement while the wartime coalition was still in place, this: set up boundary commissions; laid down a set of rules (the '1944 Rules') for a general review of constituencies (the 'Initial Review'); required the commission, before embarking on the Initial Review, to undertake a more limited, interim, review to address the twenty 'exceptionally large' seats that had had more than 100000 electors when the most recent registration was carried out in 1939 (and allowed them to create up to 25 additional seats in the process).
- House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1945 - Implemented the interim review in time for the 1945 GE.
- House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1947 - Enacted at the request of the boundary commissions, which were struggling with the Initial Review, it removed the 25% tolerance laid down the 1944 Rules.
- Boundary Commission proposals for Initial Review - Published in 1948, using the 1944 rules as amended in 1947.
- Representation of the People Act 1949 - Numerous electoral changes, including the alignment of the Parliamentary and local government franchises and the abolition of the University seats. It also abolished the business vote, which had the effect of slashing the electorate of the City of London from about 12500 to fewer than 5000.
- House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949 - This
- implemented the BC recommendations for the Initial Review but with significant changes imposed by the government, notably the creation of an additional 17 borough seats in England (and these boundaries applied in the GEs of 1950 and 1951).
- abolished the City of London as a separate constituency, even though its continuation as such had been explicitly provided for in the 1944 rules (and this provision had not been changed in 1947)
- laid down a new set of rules for future 'Periodic Reviews' of constituencies (the '1949 Rules').
Compared with the 1944 Rules, the 1949 Rules provided that the total number of seats in GB should be 'not substantially greater or less (sic) than 613' (in 1944 it had been 591). They also provided that each seat should return a single member. The 1944 Rules, by contrast, had held the door theoretically open to the continuation of a few two-member seats but the Commissions had to jump through a number of hoops before they could recommend a double seat and I think I'm right in saying that the Commissions took the hint and didn't recommend any. Another significant change was that, whereas the 1944 Rules had guaranteed the survival of the City of London in its existing boundaries (while leaving it to the politicians to decide whether it should continue to have 2 MPs or be cut to 1), the 1949 Rules provided only that the whole City should be part of a single seat the name of which must refer to the presence of the City within it.
The First Periodic Review then took place in accordance with the 1949 Rules, and the boundaries it recommended were in effect 1955-74.
The size of the House of Commons was 615 (including 12 university seats) from 1922 to 1945, when the 25 additional seats under the interim review increased the total to 640. However, the stipulation in the 1944 Rules of approximately 591 territorial seats in GB shows that the increase was intended to be temporary. I haven't got access to the Boundary Commission reports under the Initial Review but I think they must have involved 596 territorial seats in GB, which I presume, even with an extra 1 or 2 for the City, was deemed not to be 'substantially greater ... than 591'. Add 12 for NI, plus 12 university seats, and this implies a House of 621 or 622. In the event, though, the government abolished the university seats and ended the City's existence as a separate seat, then added 17 seats in English boroughs, so the eventual total was 596 + 17 + 12 = 625. It was evidently intended to keep the House at around this size because the 1949 Rules provided for 613 seats in GB (give or take) plus 12 for NI.
It's interesting that in the 1940s a proposed 25% tolerance above or below quota was repealed because it was thought to be too restrictive, whereas in the 2020s we have to get within 5%. |
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 14,808
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Post by J.G.Harston on Feb 11, 2024 18:34:34 GMT
It's interesting that in the 1940s a proposed 25% tolerance above or below quota was repealed because it was thought to be too restrictive, whereas in the 2020s we have to get within 5%. I've argued in relation to the Zombie Reviews that changing the number of seats and changing the tolerance of the seats in one go is too big to chew at the same time, and you should change each in different reviews. That could well have fed into the 1940s problems, but 25% is still a huge leaway.
Am I correct in that no explicit tolerance was actually specified until the 2010s reviews?
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Post by johnloony on Feb 11, 2024 18:57:55 GMT
It's interesting that in the 1940s a proposed 25% tolerance above or below quota was repealed because it was thought to be too restrictive, whereas in the 2020s we have to get within 5%. I've argued in relation to the Zombie Reviews that changing the number of seats and changing the tolerance of the seats in one go is too big to chew at the same time, and you should change each in different reviews. That could well have fed into the 1940s problems, but 25% is still a huge leaway. Am I correct in that no explicit tolerance was actually specified until the 2010s reviews? Correct. In the previous review, the target electorate was 69,934 and the Boundary Commission imposed on itself a leeway of +/- 10,000 thus allowing electorates of between 59,934 and 79,934 - but even then there were a few exceptions and it wasn’t a statutory limit. |
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Post by hullenedge on Feb 11, 2024 19:11:36 GMT
Don't forget the 1946 zombie review. Most of those proposals (plus the debate in parliament regarding the BC process and the correct electorates to use) are now available via the BNA.
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Post by islington on Feb 11, 2024 21:13:26 GMT
Don't forget the 1946 zombie review. Most of those proposals (plus the debate in parliament regarding the BC process and the correct electorates to use) are now available via the BNA. Ah, so the BCs got all the way to finalizing their recommendations under the 1944 Rules.
I hadn't realized that.
So the Initial Review had three outcomes: one in 1946 based on the 1944 Rules, but not implemented; the second, in 1948, after the Rules were relaxed in 1947; and the third, with some substantial tweaks by the government, in the legislation finally passed in 1949, which took effect at the 1950 GE.
It would be interesting to see how the three outcomes differed.
Actually, it seems to me that the sainted Attlee government does not come out very well from this saga. Labour had negotiated the 1944 Rules with the Tories, signed them off and helped enact the necessary legislation. But when they saw the outcome, they ditched the review and told the BCs to start again under significantly amended rules. And when they saw the outcome of that, they still didn't like it and made significant changes before legislating, notably by adding 17 seats in English boroughs (areas of Labour electoral strength, as the infuriated Tories did not fail to point out).
And after all that, what? These boundaries, the ones initially drawn up according to rules Labour had agreed to, but tweaked in 1947, and tweaked again in 1949, were the very same ones that delivered an outright majority in 1951 to a Tory party that Labour significantly outpolled. So not only did they shift the goalposts - twice - in what looks very much like political sharp practice; they did it so ineptly that they handed themselves an undeserved defeat in 1951. It's like slipping the lead weight into your boxing glove then punching yourself on the nose with it.
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YL
Non-Aligned
Either Labour leaning or Lib Dem leaning but not sure which
Posts: 4,915
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Post by YL on Feb 11, 2024 21:23:23 GMT
This Commons Library briefing from 2010 says the 17 extra seats were "at the request of the Commissions", though it also mentions Tory accusations of gerrymandering. What was actually going on here?
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Feb 11, 2024 21:30:56 GMT
I don't think the 1946 boundary review completed.
The rapid changes in the law were partly because the post-war Labour government chose to enact several reforms which were not supported by the Speaker's Conference in 1944 - for instance the Speaker's Conference supported continuation of the two-member City of London constituency and the University constituencies.
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Post by hullenedge on Feb 11, 2024 21:33:52 GMT
The 1946 review was loathed by all. The electorate figures for London were already out of date as folk moved back to our capital. It was clear that the rules would have to be relaxed and the BC restart the review.
The 1947 review created 608 territorial seats although possible that the University seats and the CoL double seat could have survived at that point.
The government was not fully happy with the review and they did have a point. County seats had electorates noticeably below Borough seats hence the extra 17 seats. Churchill was livid and requested another review for this enlarged House(there are proposals). Anyway to cut the story short the 17 seats had no bias to either side. Good piece by David Butler in his Electoral System book.
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Post by hullenedge on Feb 11, 2024 21:40:47 GMT
I don't think the 1946 boundary review completed. The rapid changes in the law were partly because the post-war Labour government chose to enact several reforms which were not supported by the Speaker's Conference in 1944 - for instance the Speaker's Conference supported continuation of the two-member City of London constituency and the University constituencies. The review was almost completed. South Wales missing? The BC raced through their work in less than a year and sadly the proposals were sub optimal. |
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