Blackpool (UK Parliament constituency)

Blackpool
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1885–1945
Number of members	one
Replaced by	Blackpool North and Blackpool South
Created from	North Lancashire

Blackpool was a parliamentary constituency centred on the town of Blackpool in Lancashire. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The constituency was created for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1945 general election, when it was replaced by the new Blackpool North and Blackpool South constituencies.

Members of Parliament

Year		Member	Party
	1885	Frederick Stanley	Conservative
	1886	Sir Matthew Ridley	Conservative
	1900	Henry Wilson Worsley-Taylor	Conservative
	1906	Wilfrid Ashley	Conservative
	1918	Sir Albert Lindsay Parkinson	Coalition Conservative
	1922	Leonard Greenham Star Molloy	Conservative
	1923	Hugh Mowbray Meyler	Liberal
	1924	Sir Walter de Frece	Conservative
	1931	Clifford Erskine-Bolst	Conservative
	1935	Roland Robinson	Conservative
1945		constituency abolished: see Blackpool North and Blackpool South

Election results

Elections in the 1910s

General Election 1918: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Sir Albert Lindsay Parkinson	15,818
	Independent	F Critchley	9,862
	Labour	Allan Gee	2,608
Majority
Turnout
	Unionist hold		Swing

• endorsed by the Coalition Government

Elections in the 1920s

Hugh Meyler

General Election 1922: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Leonard Greenham Star Molloy	18,206
	Liberal	Hugh Mowbray Meyler	18,040
Majority
Turnout
	Unionist hold		Swing

General Election 1923: Blackpool [1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hugh Mowbray Meyler	22,264	53.7	+3.9
	Unionist	Hon. Victor Albert Stanley	19,192	46.3	-3.9
Majority			3,072	7.4	7.8
Turnout				84.8	+6.5
	Liberal gain from Unionist		Swing	+3.9

General Election 1924: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Sir Abraham Walter de Frece	25,839	58.0
	Liberal	Hugh Mowbray Meyler	18,712	42.0
Majority			7,127	16.0
Turnout				85.8
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing

General Election 1929: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Sir Abraham Walter de Frece	32,912	46.8	-11.2
	Liberal	Miles Mitchell	25,374	36.1	-5.9
	Labour	Ernest Alfred Machin	12,049	17.1	n/a
Majority			7,538	10.7	-5.3
Turnout				81.1	-4.7
	Unionist hold		Swing	-2.7

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1931: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Clifford Charles Alan Lawrence Erskine-Bolst	53,010	73.1
	Liberal	Edgar Wallace	19,524	26.9
Majority				46.2
Turnout
	Conservative hold		Swing

• Wallace was opposed to the National Government.

Henry Purchase

General Election 1935: Blackpool
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	John Roland Robinson	48,514
	Labour	Harvey Thorneycroft	13,598
	Liberal	Henry George Purchase	12,245
Majority
Turnout
	Conservative hold		Swing

Elections in the 1940s

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 from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected; *Conservative: Roland Robinson

• Liberal: Adrian Liddell Hart
• Labour: Harvey Thorneycroft

References

1. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-49, FWS Craig

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 3)

Craig, F. W. S. (1983). British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3 ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.