County Oxfordshire Created 1885 | Electorate 73,851 (December 2010) Number of members One | |
 | ||
Major settlements Henley, Thame and Chinnor Member of parliament John Howell (Conservative) | ||
Henley is a constituency in Oxfordshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2008 by John Howell, a Conservative.
Contents
Constituency profile
The area has since 1910 been a Conservative safe seat, making it one of the longest held seats by the party's candidates in the country.
Boundaries
1885-1918: The Municipal Borough of Henley-on-Thames, the Sessional Divisions of Henley and Wallington, part of the Sessional Division of Bullingdon, and the part of the Municipal Borough of Abingdon in the county of Oxfordshire.
1918-1950: The Municipal Borough of Henley-on-Thames, the Urban Districts of Bicester, Thame, and Wheatley, and the Rural Districts of Bicester, Crowmarsh, Culham, Goring, Headington, Henley, and Thame.
1950-1974: The Municipal Borough of Henley-on-Thames, the Urban Districts of Bicester and Thame, the Rural Districts of Bullingdon and Henley, and part of the Rural District of Ploughley.
1974-1983: The Municipal Borough of Henley-on-Thames, the Urban District of Thame, the Rural District of Henley, and part of the Rural District of Bullingdon.
1983-1997: The District of South Oxfordshire wards of Aston Rowant, Benson, Berinsfield, Chalgrove, Chinnor, Clifton Hampden, Crowmarsh, Dorchester, Forest Hill, Garsington, Goring, Goring Heath, Great Milton, Henley, Kidmore End, Nettlebed, Rotherfield Peppard, Shiplake, Sonning Common, Thame North, Thame South, Watlington, Wheatley, and Woodcote.
1997-2010: The District of South Oxfordshire wards of Aston Rowant, Benson, Berinsfield, Chalgrove, Chinnor, Clifton Hampden, Crowmarsh, Dorchester, Forest Hill, Garsington, Goring, Goring Heath, Great Milton, Henley, Horspath, Kidmore End, Nettlebed, Rotherfield Peppard, Shiplake, Sonning Common, Thame North, Thame South, Watlington, Wheatley, and Woodcote.
2010-present: The District of South Oxfordshire wards of Aston Rowant, Benson, Berinsfield, Chalgrove, Chiltern Woods, Chinnor, Crowmarsh, Forest Hill and Holton, Garsington, Goring, Great Milton, Henley North, Henley South, Sandford, Shiplake, Sonning Common, Thame North, Thame South, Watlington, Wheatley, and Woodcote, and the District of Cherwell wards of Kirtlington and Otmoor.
The constituency covers most of the local government district of South Oxfordshire, excluding the Wallingford and Didcot areas in the west of the district. Main settlements in the South Oxfordshire part of the constituency include Henley-on-Thames itself, Thame, Chinnor and Sonning Common. The two wards of Cherwell that are included in the seat are located to the north of South Oxfordshire and are predominantly rural.
History
The best-known past Members of Parliament were Michael Heseltine and Boris Johnson.
Henley has been a safe Conservative seat for several decades. The high-profile former cabinet minister Michael Heseltine served as its MP for over 25 years. Heseltine was succeeded by the equally high-profile Boris Johnson in 2001. In May 2008, Johnson was elected as Mayor of London, and he subsequently resigned from the Commons on 4 June 2008, resulting in a by-election in the constituency, which was won by John Howell. Howell was re-elected at the General Election in 2010 and again in 2015 with a massively increased majority.
Johnson returned to Parliament in 2015, as MP for the London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and since 2016 has been Foreign Secretary in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Theresa May.