Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)

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Created from
  
Lancashire

Number of members
  
2

Oldham (UK Parliament constituency)

Replaced by
  
Lancashire, Oldham East, Oldham West

Oldham was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Oldham, England. It returned two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was created by the Great Reform Act of 1832 and was abolished for the 1950 general election when it was split into the Oldham East and Oldham West constituencies.

Contents

The Oldham constituency was perhaps most notable for being where Winston Churchill began his political career. Although taking two attempts to succeed, in the 1900 general election Churchill was elected as the member of Parliament for Oldham. He held the constituency for the Conservative Party until he defected from them in defence of free trade in 1904. He then represented the Liberal Party as MP for the seat until the 1906 general election.

Boundaries

Though centred on Oldham (the town), the constituency covered a much broader territory; Shaw and Crompton, Royton, Chadderton and Lees all formed part of this district, though these were each granted individual urban district status at a local government level in 1894.

Members of Parliament

Notes:-

  • a J M Cobbett's political affiliations are complicated. He had stood unsuccessfully on an all-Radical 'plague on both your houses' slate with John Fielden in 1847. He was elected in 1852 as the Radical half of an explicit Radical-Tory alliance. At the 1857 election he was opposed by two Liberals and denied that he had sold out to Palmerston, asserting that the Liberal Chief Whip had no confidence in him. In 1865 he stood unsuccessfully in conjunction with a Conservative, opposed by two Liberals. Nonetheless, from 1852 to 1865 outside Oldham he was generally taken to be a Liberal. From 1872 to his death in 1877 he sat as a Conservative (but one calling for annual Parliaments and manhood suffrage)
  • b Churchill changed his party allegiance in April 1904.
  • c Denniss changed his surname to Bartley-Denniss, when he was knighted in 1922.
  • Elections in the 1910s

    General Election 1914/15:

    Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

  • Liberal: W. H. Sumnervell
  • Unionist: John Radcliffe Platt, Edmund Bartley-Denniss
  • Labour: William Cornforth Robinson
  • endorsed by the Coalition Government
  • Elections in the 1930s

    General Election 1939/40

    Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the Autumn of 1939, the following candidates had been selected;

  • Conservative: Hamilton William Kerr
  • Liberal National: John Samuel Dodd
  • Labour: Charles Leslie Hale, D A Mainds
  • Liberal: James Taylor Middleton
  • References

    Oldham (UK Parliament constituency) Wikipedia