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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 7, 2023 18:33:36 GMT
Whenever I've seen a map of the 1955-74 boundaries in Sheffield I've always thought they looked like a bit of a dog's breakfast. Park had a weird northward extension into bits of Burngreave, while Hillsborough managed to extend into the city centre and Netherthorpe while avoiding Upperthorpe. The shape of Heeley was a bit strange too. I wonder how they ended up like that. I guess some of what seems weird to me now was less weird in the 1950s before slum clearance; e.g. the Penistone Road area and Parkwood Springs actually having people living there might have made Hillsborough feel more coherent than those boundaries would today. An alternative six seat Sheffield based on the 1952-67 wards might be Neepsend: Cathedral, Burngreave, Firth Park, Southey Green Brightside: Nether Shire, Brightside, Attercliffe, Tinsley Park: Moor, Manor, Park, Darnall, Handsworth (there has to be a five ward seat somewhere, and with the wards having been recently drawn it shouldn't matter that much which) Heeley: Sharrow, Nether Edge, Heeley, Woodseats Hallam: Ecclesall, Hallam, Broomhill, Norton Hillsborough: Crookesmoor, Walkley, Hillsborough, Owlerton
Still some oddities but it feels a bit more coherent (especially in Burngreave). Compared with the 1950-55 boundaries Attercliffe rather than Neepsend is the abolished seat.
This post wins the niche alternative history award
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 7, 2023 18:35:59 GMT
This post wins the niche alternative history award I think you should see it as a challenge to come up with some alternative historic boundaries for Hertfordshire.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 7, 2023 18:38:36 GMT
This post wins the niche alternative history award I think you should see it as a challenge to come up with some alternative historic boundaries for Hertfordshire. I may do that. I did manage to gerrymander a Conservative seat in Liverpool on the 1983 boundaries (that is to say they would have won it in 1983 - obviously they would have lost it in 1987)
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Post by parlconst on Mar 8, 2023 16:22:11 GMT
By using a *website* that isn't shit. A website shouldn't force down your throat its entire contents without asking. *ANY* computer system should provide what ***IIII**** instruct it to do, not what it thinks I should accept being thrown at me. This is very harsh criticism of a site that is one of the best things to have happened for years in this area of interest.
If you want to go to the maps section, you have a choice of three time periods: 1885-1950; 1950-1983; and 1983-date. Each of these loads, I think, nine maps. This doesn't work on my phone, I admit, but it has never given me trouble on a proper computer (and I've accessed this site using a number of machines, not just my own) so it doesn't appear to be more than a modern computer should be expected to handle.
Anyway, if you want a link to a specific map the offer stands: let me know the part of the country and the time period that interests you and I'll post a link to a single map.
I am always happy to receive suggestions for improvements to the site. I had hoped by now to have loaded the historic constituency maps for Wales, but the uMap server on which these are hosted had a failure just before I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago, preventing any new maps being created (and losing some recently created ones). It was also having problems earlier this week - so I want to make sure it's stable before I do too much work on loading new maps to it. When I do, I will look to rationalise the page layout, which otherwise will become rather cluttered as more areas are added.
At the moment, my priority is maintaining the schedule of producing the Charts and Tables for a new Scottish area each week - unfortunately, due to holidays and a bout of illness, I've used up my contingency buffer of new areas to be published. Scotland is proving to be more time consuming to prepare than England and Wales, as each review seems to have introduced more changes than is typical elsewhere.
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European Lefty
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Post by European Lefty on Mar 8, 2023 16:29:27 GMT
I think you should see it as a challenge to come up with some alternative historic boundaries for Hertfordshire. I may do that. I did manage to gerrymander a Conservative seat in Liverpool on the 1983 boundaries (that is to say they would have won it in 1983 - obviously they would have lost it in 1987) Ah, but will you be using modern Hertfordshire or pre-1974 Hertfordshire? EDIT: Actually I'm not sure I mean 1974, given that the boundary changes which created GL/abolished Middlesex and moved some of it into other counties must have happened earlier. I'm sure the intent of my question was clear though
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 8, 2023 16:56:37 GMT
I may do that. I did manage to gerrymander a Conservative seat in Liverpool on the 1983 boundaries (that is to say they would have won it in 1983 - obviously they would have lost it in 1987) Ah, but will you be using modern Hertfordshire or pre-1974 Hertfordshire? EDIT: Actually I'm not sure I mean 1974, given that the boundary changes which created GL/abolished Middlesex and moved some of it into other counties must have happened earlier. I'm sure the intent of my question was clear though I think you were right the first time anyway, as the parliamentary boundaries in Hertfordshire didn't actually catch up with the 1960s changes until 1974. Both the Barnet and Enfield West seats included parts of Greater London and 'Hertfordshire' before then (there were subsequent, much more minor changes in 1994, but these aren't really worth trying to account for. In any case I'm not sure doing this for Hertfordshire woould be all that worthwhile an exercise..
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Post by islington on Mar 8, 2023 17:55:03 GMT
This is very harsh criticism of a site that is one of the best things to have happened for years in this area of interest.
If you want to go to the maps section, you have a choice of three time periods: 1885-1950; 1950-1983; and 1983-date. Each of these loads, I think, nine maps. This doesn't work on my phone, I admit, but it has never given me trouble on a proper computer (and I've accessed this site using a number of machines, not just my own) so it doesn't appear to be more than a modern computer should be expected to handle.
Anyway, if you want a link to a specific map the offer stands: let me know the part of the country and the time period that interests you and I'll post a link to a single map.
I am always happy to receive suggestions for improvements to the site. I had hoped by now to have loaded the historic constituency maps for Wales, but the uMap server on which these are hosted had a failure just before I went on holiday a couple of weeks ago, preventing any new maps being created (and losing some recently created ones). It was also having problems earlier this week - so I want to make sure it's stable before I do too much work on loading new maps to it. When I do, I will look to rationalise the page layout, which otherwise will become rather cluttered as more areas are added.
At the moment, my priority is maintaining the schedule of producing the Charts and Tables for a new Scottish area each week - unfortunately, due to holidays and a bout of illness, I've used up my contingency buffer of new areas to be published. Scotland is proving to be more time consuming to prepare than England and Wales, as each review seems to have introduced more changes than is typical elsewhere.
Ah, I was wondering what had happened to the all-Wales maps.
Another complication in Scotland is the number of burghal districts, because it's got to be more arduous to identify and plot the boundaries of a seat comprising five or six scattered small burghs as opposed to one big contiguous burgh.
Anyway, keep up the great work.
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Post by Peter Wilkinson on Mar 8, 2023 22:59:19 GMT
Ah, but will you be using modern Hertfordshire or pre-1974 Hertfordshire? EDIT: Actually I'm not sure I mean 1974, given that the boundary changes which created GL/abolished Middlesex and moved some of it into other counties must have happened earlier. I'm sure the intent of my question was clear though I think you were right the first time anyway, as the parliamentary boundaries in Hertfordshire didn't actually catch up with the 1960s changes until 1974. Both the Barnet and Enfield West seats included parts of Greater London and 'Hertfordshire' before then (there were subsequent, much more minor changes in 1994, but these aren't really worth trying to account for. In any case I'm not sure doing this for Hertfordshire woould be all that worthwhile an exercise.. Though the "much more minor changes" were in 1997, not 1994 - if you are going by the general elections at which changes take effect rather than by when the changes are approved by Parliament. Because, in the latter case, I'm fairly sure that Parliament had approved the 1974 changes in 1971 or early 1972. And, of course, Barnet had been entirely a Hertfordshire constituency until 1964, and Enfield West a Middlesex one - with the main successors to both (Chipping Barnet and Enfield North) being entirely Greater London constituencies. The post-1964 Hertfordshire parts of both constituencies went, I think in their entirity, first to South Hertfordshire and then to Hertsmere, of which they must now together constitute the major part. Looking at later changes, though, while the current Enfield North constituency (and even the likely future one) still fairly closely reflects the 1974 one, the 1974 Chipping Barnet constituency, having lost something like a quarter to a third of Barnet's previous electorate, must have been one of the smallest in Greater London, and its current (and future) versions are quite as different from the 1974 version as the 1974 one was from the previous constituency, even if the current additional territory is of necessity totally different. Though, for much the same reason, this is presumably irrelevant in terms of any exercise you might choose to do with Hertfordshire. What would be of rather more relevance would be not just the 1997 changes to Hertsmere but the previous 1983 ones (which you seem to have overlooked) which, besides changing the constituency name from South Hertfordshire, also made quite a number of changes to its northern and western boundaries. Of course, how much this actually matters to you would depend on the details of your exercise. As a final point, I'll note that this wasn't the first time that constituency boundary changes had lagged well behind changes to the Hertfordshire/Middlesex county boundary. Indeed, the 1889 transfer of the parishes of Monken Hadley, Hadley and South Mimms Urban from Middlesex to Hertfordshire, in order to match the pre-existing local board districts, does not seem to have had any effect on the boundaries of the Middlesex division of Enfield with the Hertfordshire division of St Albans until the next boundary review in 1918, nearly 30 years later. Though admittedly, in terms of geographic scale, these three parishes (two of which appear to have been mainly administrative conveniences) were only a small fraction of the areas affected by the 1964/1974 timelag.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 9, 2023 4:29:52 GMT
I think you were right the first time anyway, as the parliamentary boundaries in Hertfordshire didn't actually catch up with the 1960s changes until 1974. Both the Barnet and Enfield West seats included parts of Greater London and 'Hertfordshire' before then (there were subsequent, much more minor changes in 1994, but these aren't really worth trying to account for. In any case I'm not sure doing this for Hertfordshire woould be all that worthwhile an exercise.. Though the "much more minor changes" were in 1997, not 1994 - if you are going by the general elections at which changes take effect rather than by when the changes are approved by Parliament. Because, in the latter case, I'm fairly sure that Parliament had approved the 1974 changes in 1971 or early 1972. I think you misunderstand. The changes which took place to the county boundary occurred in 1964 but were not reflected in the parliamentary boundaries until 1974. I'm not talking about when the parliamentart boundaries were approved by parliament. Of course, yes, in that case the small changes to the county boundary that occurred in 1994 would not have been reflected in the parliamentary boundaries until 1997 (in terms of when the boundaries were used for an election. There were no changes to the county boundary which affected the constituency boundary changes in 1983 as far as I'm aware so I haven't overlooked anything. European Lefty asked if I was going to use the pre-1974 (ie pre-1964) or post 1974 (ie post 1964) boundaries (ie county boundaries). If I were to engage in any exercise similar to that which YL for Sheffield (i'm not) then it would depend which set of parliamentary boundaries I was going to provide an alternative for. If it were then 1955-74 boundaries as in his case, then Hertfordshire would include Barnet and exclude Potters Bar as it did - if it were the 1974-1983 or 1983-97 boundaries it would not. If I were to be drawing an alternative set of boundaries for 1974 or 1983 or whatever, what the actual parliamentray boundaries were would be more or less neither here or there. You seem to have overlooked Kensworth, transferred from Hertfordshire to Bedfordshire in 1894 but which remained in the St Albans division of Hertfordshire until 1918.
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Post by Peter Wilkinson on Mar 9, 2023 19:05:57 GMT
I think you misunderstand. The changes which took place to the county boundary occurred in 1964 but were not reflected in the parliamentary boundaries until 1974. I'm not talking about when the parliamentart boundaries were approved by parliament. Of course, yes, in that case the small changes to the county boundary that occurred in 1994 would not have been reflected in the parliamentary boundaries until 1997 (in terms of when the boundaries were used for an election. Sorry, yes - I was rather taking the 1964 date of the county boundary revision as read, and then thinking purely in terms of historic constituency boundaries (which may be the subject title of this thread, but is not the closely-related subject into which the recent posts within the thread on which you were commenting had drifted). As a new observation on the later small changes, I'll turn(?) pedant and remark that the "1994" Hertfordshire boundary changes were actually carried through under several different orders, of which some (those relating to Barnet and Harrow, for instance) actually came into effect in 1993 (and thus would have affected the 1993 Hertfordshire County Council elections???). I'll add a small personal reminiscence which I had to think through very hard to line up with these boundary changes only applying to parliamentary constituencies in 1997. Because in Chipping Barnet constituency, the 1997 Labour Party agent was one of a very small handful of party members (possibly just her and her husband) who actually lived in the area transferred from Hertfordshire, and was already a Chipping Barnet party officer, elected through normal AGM processes some while (I think a year) before the election. But how? Well, she had a lot of experience in Hertsmere and the area had already transferred into the Borough of Barnet (and been allocated to appropriate wards) before the 1994 council elections - so her membership was treated (at least locally - I don't know what the national Labour Party position will have been) as having transferred then between constituencies. Overlooked, in the sense of being totally unaware of. My excuse here is that it's outside my local area. I have lived for almost my entire 68-year life, through two moves, in what is now the Borough of Barnet but within a few minutes' walk of the pre-1889 Hertfordshire/Middlesex boundary (even if I was unaware of this last fact until I started chasing up detailed local boundary history over the past few years). Kensworth, while very interesting to be aware of, is nearly 20 miles away.
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Post by Pete Whitehead on Mar 9, 2023 19:35:49 GMT
As a new observation on the later small changes, I'll turn(?) pedant and remark that the "1994" Hertfordshire boundary changes were actually carried through under several different orders, of which some (those relating to Barnet and Harrow, for instance) actually came into effect in 1993 (and thus would have affected the 1993 Hertfordshire County Council elections???). On the basis that the electorate of Bushey Heath, Elstree and Potters Bar SW divisions (those most affected by the changes) changed markedly between 1989 and 1993 and barely changed at all between 1993 and 1997 (increased in the case of the first two, decreased in the case of the last) that must be so (it wouldn't have affected any of the results though). I should have known this as I lived in one of the affected divisions at the time - quite probably I did know it at the time, but it was a long time ago! Well I think it is standard for parties to organise along the lines of incoming parliamentary constituencies once those have been confirmed. It surely cannot mean that the areas had been transferred between the constituencies before the election - you couldn't have a situation whereby (for example) Sydney Chapman representing a bunch of electors who had never had the opportunity to vote for or against him.
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mattb
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Post by mattb on Mar 9, 2023 22:46:58 GMT
You seem to have overlooked Kensworth, transferred from Hertfordshire to Bedfordshire in 1894 but which remained in the St Albans division of Hertfordshire until 1918. There's also the Chorleywood boundary change in 1991 (that ended up having to have an election petition to correct the result in the first election for the newly-enlarged ward).
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Post by islington on Mar 13, 2023 20:51:41 GMT
Well, here's something I've never seen before and I hope it may be of some interest.
As everyone on this site must know by now I'm a big fan of the 1885 redistribution and a large proportion of the Boundary Commission maps are online. The split of Dublin into four single-member divisions, for instance, can readily be found. I've always assumed there must be a similar map of Belfast, likewise split into four at that review, but I've never been able to find it.
And here it is. I found a copy at the British Library today and photographed it. (I asked permission first.)
I haven't checked it yet against the 1885 Redistribution Act, but I think I'm right in saying this was implemented exactly as proposed by the Commission.
As an added bonus for boundary fans, if you look closely the map also shows Belfast's previous boundary up to 1885 when it was still an at-large two-member seat. It's shown as a black pecked line. It's most obvious where it crosses Belfast Lough but if you don't mind squinting a bit you can follow the complete circuit.
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Post by peterm on Mar 14, 2023 16:16:49 GMT
Well done! A great find.
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Post by islington on Mar 14, 2023 18:44:35 GMT
Thanks. I was pleased with it.
Moreover I've now checked it against a rough plan I drew some time ago based on the wording in the 1885 Act. They match (except the BC map is clearer and easier on the eye than my scrappy version). So I now feel assured that the BC plan does indeed represent the Belfast seats as they existed from 1885 to 1918.
Oh, and populations based on the 1881 census as given by the BC:
N 53427 W 58043 E 55897 S 54233
Total 221600
I found it slightly surprising that the population of the Parliamentary Borough as found in 1881 was as much as 208122, so the extensions in 1885, although territorially quite large, added only 13478 (8798 on the Antrim side and 4680 from Down).
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Post by parlconst on Mar 15, 2023 20:43:44 GMT
Well, here's something I've never seen before and I hope it may be of some interest.
As everyone on this site must know by now I'm a big fan of the 1885 redistribution and a large proportion of the Boundary Commission maps are online. The split of Dublin into four single-member divisions, for instance, can readily be found. I've always assumed there must be a similar map of Belfast, likewise split into four at that review, but I've never been able to find it.
And here it is. I found a copy at the British Library today and photographed it. (I asked permission first.)
I haven't checked it yet against the 1885 Redistribution Act, but I think I'm right in saying this was implemented exactly as proposed by the Commission.
It's odd that this isn't easily findable on-line. I wonder if it's because the Belfast map is physically very large (for example, more than twice the size of the one for Dublin in the same report), so that those who have scanned these gave up with the Belfast map because they couldn't copy it as a single document?
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Mar 15, 2023 22:57:39 GMT
Thanks. I was pleased with it.
Moreover I've now checked it against a rough plan I drew some time ago based on the wording in the 1885 Act. They match (except the BC map is clearer and easier on the eye than my scrappy version). So I now feel assured that the BC plan does indeed represent the Belfast seats as they existed from 1885 to 1918.
Oh, and populations based on the 1881 census as given by the BC:
N 53427 W 58043 E 55897 S 54233
Total 221600
I found it slightly surprising that the population of the Parliamentary Borough as found in 1881 was as much as 208122, so the extensions in 1885, although territorially quite large, added only 13478 (8798 on the Antrim side and 4680 from Down).
Belfast would have been a densely-populated industrial city and most of the expanded territory wasn't built on until after WW1 ( apps.spatialni.gov.uk/PRONIApplication/ allows you to view successive versions of the 6 inch/1:10560 map). Belfast also didn't have a ring of middle-class suburban settlements - evading the control of a Nationalist-majority Corporation - outside its official boundary in the way that Dublin had; Whiteabbey and Holywood were much smaller than Rathmines or the Blackrock/Kingstown/Dalkey coastal belt.
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obsie
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Post by obsie on Mar 15, 2023 23:48:44 GMT
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YL
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Post by YL on Mar 16, 2023 9:05:17 GMT
Thanks. I was pleased with it. Moreover I've now checked it against a rough plan I drew some time ago based on the wording in the 1885 Act. They match (except the BC map is clearer and easier on the eye than my scrappy version). So I now feel assured that the BC plan does indeed represent the Belfast seats as they existed from 1885 to 1918. Oh, and populations based on the 1881 census as given by the BC: N 53427 W 58043 E 55897 S 54233 Total 221600 I found it slightly surprising that the population of the Parliamentary Borough as found in 1881 was as much as 208122, so the extensions in 1885, although territorially quite large, added only 13478 (8798 on the Antrim side and 4680 from Down).
Belfast would have been a densely-populated industrial city and most of the expanded territory wasn't built on until after WW1 ( apps.spatialni.gov.uk/PRONIApplication/ allows you to view successive versions of the 6 inch/1:10560 map). Belfast also didn't have a ring of middle-class suburban settlements - evading the control of a Nationalist-majority Corporation - outside its official boundary in the way that Dublin had; Whiteabbey and Holywood were much smaller than Rathmines or the Blackrock/Kingstown/Dalkey coastal belt. It's curious that it was extended so far into territory that was then rural. More usually city boundaries seem to catch up (or not, if you're in Newtownbreda, Stoke Gifford or West Bridgford) with suburbanisation, rather than lead them. I get the impression that there were relatively few extensions to the Belfast city boundary between then and the 2011 changes.
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Post by islington on Mar 16, 2023 9:40:19 GMT
Thanks. I was pleased with it.
Moreover I've now checked it against a rough plan I drew some time ago based on the wording in the 1885 Act. They match (except the BC map is clearer and easier on the eye than my scrappy version). So I now feel assured that the BC plan does indeed represent the Belfast seats as they existed from 1885 to 1918.
Oh, and populations based on the 1881 census as given by the BC:
N 53427 W 58043 E 55897 S 54233
Total 221600
I found it slightly surprising that the population of the Parliamentary Borough as found in 1881 was as much as 208122, so the extensions in 1885, although territorially quite large, added only 13478 (8798 on the Antrim side and 4680 from Down).
Belfast would have been a densely-populated industrial city and most of the expanded territory wasn't built on until after WW1 ( apps.spatialni.gov.uk/PRONIApplication/ allows you to view successive versions of the 6 inch/1:10560 map). Belfast also didn't have a ring of middle-class suburban settlements - evading the control of a Nationalist-majority Corporation - outside its official boundary in the way that Dublin had; Whiteabbey and Holywood were much smaller than Rathmines or the Blackrock/Kingstown/Dalkey coastal belt. Well, the extra numbers must have come from somewhere because by 1911 Belfast PB had increased to 385822, a very substantial increase that put it far ahead of Dublin PB (295226 in 1911) and all the more notable because between 1881 and 1911 the population of Ireland as a whole declined from 5174834 to 4390219, an appalling indictment of British rule. (In 1841 it had been 8175124.)
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