Hallamshire (UK Parliament constituency)

UK former constituency infobox
Name = Hallamshire
Type = County
Year = 1885
Abolition = 1918
members = one

Hallamshire was a Parliamentary constituency covering the Hallamshire district of England. The constituency was created in 1885 and abolished in 1918. It should not be confused with Sheffield Hallam. The seat was a large geographical area which in the west included the moors of the Pennines (Howden Moors, Midhope Moors, Broom Read Moor, Bradfield Moor and Hallam Moor), but came down from the hills in the centre to include better farmland north of Sheffield around Ecclesfield. In the north-east it included part of the South Yorkshire coalfield and some mining villages. In the south, the residents of Sheffield who owned their freeholds could vote in this division.

For twenty years the Member of Parliament was a prominent Sheffield cutler and steel manufacturer, Sir Frederick Mappin, who was able to unite the middle-class voters from Sheffield with the hill-farmers and the miners to vote for him as a Liberal. When he retired the local Liberal association selected a miner, John Wadsworth, who was President of the Yorkshire Miners Association in 1903 and sponsored by the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. With the other MFGB sponsored MPs, Wadsworth transferred to the Labour Party in 1909.

Boundaries

The consistuency covered an area north and west of inner Sheffield. On its creation in 1885 it was defined as containing the Municipal Borough of Sheffield, and the Parishes of Bradfield, Ecclesfield, Wath-upon-Dearne, Brampton Bierlow, Wentworth, Handsworth, Tankersley, Nether Hoyland, and Wortley.

The Municipal Borough of Sheffield was also a Parliamentary Borough and so the only electors from that area entitled to vote in Hallamshire were those who were freeholders. They could, of course, also exercise their vote in the appropriate division of the Parliamentary Borough of Sheffield. However there were always considerable numbers of Sheffield freeholders who voted at elections for Hallamshire according to Henry Pelling in his "Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910".

This anomaly of the electoral system was ended in 1918. The remainder of the constituency formed the cores of both the Penistone and Wentworth constituencies in boundary changes made that year.

Member of Parliament

*1885-1906: Sir Frederick Mappin, Liberal
*1906-1918: John Wadsworth, Lib-Lab, then Labour

Election results

Election box begin
title=General Election 1885: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Party (UK)
candidate = Frederick Mappin
votes = 6,454
percentage = 59.2
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Hon. Charles Wentworth-Fitzwilliam
votes = 4,451
percentage = 40.8
change = Election box majority
votes = 2,003
percentage = 18.4
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 82.8
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Liberal Party (UK)
swing =

Election box begin
title=General Election 1895: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Party (UK)
candidate = Frederick Mappin
votes = 5,949
percentage = 54.1
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Frank Hatchard
votes = 5,054
percentage = 45.9
change = Election box majority
votes = 895
percentage = 8.2
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 76.0
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Liberal Party (UK)
swing =

Election box begin
title=General Election 1900: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Liberal Party (UK)
candidate = Frederick Mappin
votes = 6,688
percentage = 57.5
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Frank Hatchard
votes = 4,938
percentage = 42.5
change = Election box majority
votes = 1,750
percentage = 15.0
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 74.5
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Liberal Party (UK)
swing =

Election box begin
title=General Election 1906: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Liberal-Labour (UK)
candidate = John Wadsworth
votes = 8,375
percentage = 55.2
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = Frederic Kelley
votes = 6,807
percentage = 44.8
change = Election box majority
votes = 1,568
percentage = 10.4
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 83.9
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Liberal Party (UK)
swing =

Election box begin
title=General Election January 1910: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate = John Wadsworth
votes = 10,193
percentage = 62.2
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = T. Sutton Timmis
votes = 6,185
percentage = 37.8
change = Election box majority
votes = 4,008
percentage = 24.4
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 82.2
change = Election box gain with party link
winner = Labour Party (UK)
loser = Liberal Party (UK)
swing =

Election box begin
title=General Election December 1910: HallamshireElection box candidate with party link
party = Labour Party (UK)
candidate = John Wadsworth
votes = 8,708
percentage = 59.9
change = Election box candidate with party link
party = Conservative Party (UK)
candidate = D. T. Smith
votes = 5,837
percentage = 40.1
change = Election box majority
votes = 2,871
percentage = 19.8
change = Election box turnout
votes =
percentage = 73.0
change = Election box hold with party link
winner = Labour Party (UK)
swing =

ources

*Boundary Commission Report, 1885
*"British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918" by F. W. S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services, Chichester, 1977)
*"Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910" by Henry Pelling (Macmillan, London, 1967)
* [http://www.angeltowns.com/town/peerage/hcommons1.htm Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page]
* [http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/psr.htm Richard Kimber's Political Science Resources] (Election results since 1951)