County County of London Replaced by Hampstead & Highgate | Number of members One Created from Middlesex | |
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Hampstead was a borough constituency, centered on the Hampstead area of North London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, who was elected using the first-past-the-post voting system.
Contents
It was created for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1983 general election, when it was partly replaced by the new Hampstead and Highgate constituency.
Boundaries
The parliamentary borough of Hampstead was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and consisted of the civil parish of St John, Hampstead, Middlesex. The parish had previously formed part of the Parliamentary County of Middlesex. Hampstead lay within the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and in 1889 this became the County of London. In 1900 the county was divided into twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs, with the civil parish becoming the Metropolitan Borough of Hampstead.
Parliamentary constituencies were redrawn under the Representation of the People Act 1918, with boundaries in London realigned to those of the metropolitan boroughs. Accordingly, the Hampstead constituency was defined by the legislation as being identical in area to the metropolitan borough of the same name. When the next redistribution was carried out under the Representation of the People Act 1948 the term "parliamentary borough" was replaced with "borough constituency". The renamed Hampstead Borough Constituency continued with the same boundaries, with the changes coming into effect for the 1950 general election.
In 1965 both the County of London and the metropolitan boroughs were abolished. Hampstead became part of the larger London Borough of Camden. The changes were not reflected in parliamentary boundaries until 1970. The constituency was officially renamed "Camden, Hampstead Borough Constituency" and was defined as comprising seven wards of the London Borough, namely Adelaide, Belsize, Hampstead Central, Hampstead Town, Kilburn, Priory and West End. The wards of the borough were altered in 1973, with Swiss Cottage Ward replacing Hampstead Central in the constituency's definition. These boundaries were used until 1983 when the seat was abolished.