Chatham (UK Parliament constituency)

Chatham
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
County	Kent
Major settlements	Chatham
1832–1950
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Rochester & Chatham
Created from	Kent

Chatham was a parliamentary constituency in Kent which returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created for the 1832 general election, when the borough of Chatham was enfranchised under the Reform Act 1832.

It was abolished for the 1950 general election, when it was largely replaced by the new Rochester and Chatham constituency. This then became Medway in 1983. When the boroughs of Rochester upon Medway and Gillingham merged to form the larger unitary Borough of Medway in 1998, the Parliamentary constituency of Medway only covered part of the new borough, so for the next election it will be renamed Rochester and Strood.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1832	William Leader Maberly	Liberal
	1834 by-election	George Stevens Byng	Liberal
	1835	Sir John Poo Beresford, Bt.	Conservative
	1837	George Stevens Byng	Liberal
	1852	Sir John Mark Frederick Smith	Conservative
	1853 by-election	Leicester Viney Vernon	Conservative
	1857	Sir John Mark Frederick Smith	Conservative
	1865	Arthur Otway	Liberal
	1874	George Elliot	Conservative
	1875 by-election	Sir John Eldon Gorst	Conservative
	1892	Lewis Vivian Loyd	Conservative
	1895	Sir Horatio David Davies	Conservative
	1906	John Hagan Jenkins	Labour
	1910	Gerald Fitzroy Hohler	Conservative
	1918	John Moore-Brabazon	Conservative
	1929	Sydney Frank Markham	Labour
	1931		National Labour
	1931	Sir Park Goff	Conservative
	1935	Leonard Plugge	Conservative
	1945	Arthur Bottomley	Labour
	1950	constituency abolished: see Rochester and Chatham

Elections

Elections in the 1920s

General Election 1923: Chatham [1]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon	9,994	41.6	-9.9
	Liberal	Sir Alfred John Callaghan	8,227	34.3	-14.2
	Labour	Mary Agnes Hamilton	5,794	24.1	n/a
Majority			1,767	7.3	+4.3
Turnout				74.6
	Unionist hold		Swing	+2.1

General Election 1929: Chatham [2]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Sydney Frank Markham	13,007	42.6
	Unionist	John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon	12,221	40.1
	Liberal	George H Bryans	5,284	17.3
Majority			786	2.5
Turnout
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1931: Chatham
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Park Goff	19,991	62.54
	Labour	Oliver Ridsdale Baldwin	10,837	33.90
	New Party	Martin F Woodroffe	1,135	3.55
Majority			9,154	28.64
Turnout				75.46
	Conservative gain from Labour		Swing

General Election 1935: Chatham
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Leonard Frank Plugge	19,212	59.06
	Labour	Hugh Todd Naylor Gaitskell	13,315	40.94
Majority			5,897	18.13
Turnout				74.65
	Conservative hold		Swing

Election in the 1940s

General Election 1945: Chatham
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Arthur George Bottomley	19,250	55.34
	Conservative	Leonard Frank Plugge	15,534	44.66
Majority			3,716	10.68
Turnout				72.06
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing

References

1. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
2. British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig

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

Coordinates: 51°22′N 0°32′E / 51.367°N 0.533°E