Major settlements Richmond Major settlement Richmond | Created from Kingston Number of members 1 | |
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County 1918-1965 Surrey
1965-1983 Greater London Replaced by Kingston-upon-Thames, Richmond and Barnes | ||
Not to be confused with the Richmond constituency in Yorkshire.
Contents
Richmond was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Richmond, which was in the extreme north of Surrey until 1965 when it was incorporated into the administrative county Greater London. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the UK Parliament, elected by first past the post, the winner of each election being a Unionist or from the allied Conservative Party. Formally and informally on a local basis Richmond constituency; national publications usually added a reference to Surrey to distinguish Richmond (Yorks) (UK Parliament constituency) (1585-date).
History
The constituency was created by the Representation of the People Act 1918 for the 1918 general election. The area had formerly been covered by the northern part of the Kingston division of the Parliamentary county of Surrey.
From April 1965 the constituency formed part of Greater London. It was the eastern half of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. The Second Periodical Review of the Parliamentary Boundary Commission for England in 1969 formally made "a slight modification in the names to conform with our policy of using the London borough name as a prefix", so that the constituency was formally known as 'Richmond upon Thames, Richmond'. No boundary changes were made.
The seat was abolished for the 1983 general election, when it was replaced by the new Richmond and Barnes constituency.
Boundaries
In 1918 the seat was created as a borough constituency of Surrey. It was in the north-west corner of the historic county and adjoined the south bank of the River Thames. It comprised the Municipal Borough of Richmond, as well as the Urban Districts of Barnes and Ham.
In 1932 the Barnes Urban District was upgraded to a Municipal Borough. In the following year most of Ham was incorporated in the Municipal Borough of Richmond. These administrative changes did not lead to any immediate change in the constituency boundaries.
In the redistribution of parliamentary seats, which took effect in 1950, this constituency was not significantly changed. It was defined in the Representation of the People Act 1948 as comprising the Municipal Boroughs of Barnes and Richmond. There were some minor boundary changes to the two Municipal Boroughs, which affected the parliamentary seat from 1964 (see S.I. 1960/465).
Although incorporated in Greater London from 1974, the redistribution of parliamentary seats which took effect in 1974 did not change the constituency boundaries. It did however recast the definition of the boundaries, which set the constituency as comprising the following wards of the London Borough: Barnes, East Sheen, Ham, Petersham, Kew, Mortlake, Palewell, Richmond Hill and Richmond Town.