Waterford City (UK Parliament constituency)

Waterford City
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1801–1922

Waterford City was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland.

Boundaries and boundary changes

This constituency was the Parliamentary borough of Waterford in County Waterford.

It returned one MP 1801–1832, two MPs 1832–1885 and one 1885–1922. It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801.

From the dissolution of Parliament in 1922 the area was no longer represented in the United Kingdom House of Commons.

Politics

The constituency was a predominantly Nationalist area in 1918. The seat was contested by William Redmond, the son of the IPP leader John Redmond whom he replaced in the Waterford City constituency in a by-election held in March 1918.^[1] In the general election of December 1918, it was the only Irish seat the IPP won outside Ulster.^[2]

The First Dáil

Sinn Féin contested the general election of 1918 on the platform that instead of taking up any seats they won in the United Kingdom Parliament, they would establish a revolutionary assembly in Dublin. In republican theory every MP elected in Ireland was a potential Deputy to this assembly. In practice only the Sinn Féin members accepted the offer.

The revolutionary First Dáil assembled on 21 January 1919 and last met on 10 May 1921. The First Dáil, according to a resolution passed on 10 May 1921, was formally dissolved on the assembling of the Second Dáil. This took place on 16 August 1921.

In 1921 Sinn Féin decided to use the UK authorised elections for the Northern Ireland House of Commons and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland as a poll for the Irish Republic's Second Dáil. This area, in republican theory, was incorporated in the five member Dáil constituency of Waterford–Tipperary East.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1801–32

Election		Member	Party	Life
	1801	William Congreve Alcock	Tory	c. 1771–1813
	1803	Sir John Newport, Bt.[3]	Whig	1756–1843
	1801	Representation increased to two members

MPs 1832–85

Representation increased to two members

Election	1st Member		1st Party	2nd Member		2nd Party
1832		Henry Barron	Repeal Association		William Christmas	Conservative
1835					Thomas Wyse	Liberal
1841		William Christmas	Conservative		William Morris Reade	Conservative
1841		Henry Barron	Liberal		Thomas Wyse	Liberal
1847		Thomas Meagher	Repeal Association		Daniel O'Connell, Jr.	Repeal Association
1848 by-election					Henry Barron	Liberal
1852					Robert Keating	Liberal
1857		John Aloysius Blake	Ind. Irish		Michael Dobbyn Hassard	Conservative
1859			Liberal
1865					Henry Barron	Liberal
1868					James Delahunty	Liberal
1869		Henry Barron	Liberal
1870 by-election		Ralph Bernal Osborne	Liberal
1874		Richard Power	Home Rule League		Purcell O'Gorman	Home Rule League
1880					Edmund Leamy	Home Rule League
1882			Irish Parliamentary Party			Irish Parliamentary Party
1885	Reduced to 1 seat

MPs 1885–1918

Representation reduced to one member

Election		Member	Party
	1885	Richard Power	Nationalist
	1890		Parnellite
	1892 by-election	John Edward Redmond	Parnellite
	1900		Nationalist
	1918 by-election	William Archer Redmond	Nationalist
1922		UK constituency abolished

Elections

The single-member elections in this constituency took place using the first past the post electoral system. Multi-member elections used the plurality-at-large voting system.

General Election 14 December 1918: Waterford City
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Irish Parliamentary	William Redmond	4,915	52.6	N/A
	Sinn Féin	Vincent White	4,431	47.4	N/A
Majority			484	5.1	N/A
Turnout			9,346	77.5	N/A
	Irish Parliamentary hold		Swing	N/A

See also

• List of UK Parliament Constituencies in Ireland and Northern Ireland
• Redistribution of Seats (Ireland) Act 1918
• MPs elected in the UK general election, 1918
• List of Dáil Éireann constituencies in Ireland (historic)
• Members of the 1st Dáil

References

• GITHENS-MAZER, Jonathan. Myths and Memories of the Easter Rising, Cultural and Political Nationalism in Ireland. Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2006, 238p.
• The Parliaments of England by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844–50), 2nd edition edited (in one volume) by F.W.S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973)
• Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, edited by B.M. Walker (Royal Irish Academy 1978)
• Who's Who of British members of parliament: Volume II 1886–1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1978)
• Who's Who of British members of parliament: Volume III 1919–1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1979)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 1)

External links

• History of Parliament: Constituencies 1790–1820
• http://www.oireachtas.ie/members-hist/default.asp?housetype=0
• http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/en.toc.dail.html

References

1. Jonathan Githens-Mazer, Myths and Memories of the Easter Rising, Cultural and Political Nationalism in Ireland, (Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2006), 202
2. Brian, Walker, ed, Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801–1922, (Dublin: Royal Irish Academy, 1978), 187–191
3. On petition Alcock was unseated and Newport was declared elected, 7 December 1803.