Croydon (UK Parliament constituency)

Croydon
Former Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
County	Surrey
1885 (1885)–1918 (1918)
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Croydon North and Croydon South
Created from	East Surrey

Croydon was a constituency in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1918. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Boundaries

This constituency was a parliamentary borough covering an area based on the town of Croydon. Croydon had been a Municipal Borough from 1883 and was to become a County Borough in 1889. By 1902, at the latest, the parliamentary and local government boroughs had the same boundaries.

The Royal Commission on London Traffic, which reported in 1906, included the borough in its definition of Greater London. It is part of the northern section of the historic county of Surrey, which was included in Greater London after 1965.

From 1918 Croydon was divided into two borough constituencies - Croydon North and Croydon South.

History

A large part of the inhabitants of this constituency commuted to work in the City of London. It was however an area where attendance at Nonconformist chapels exceeded that at Anglican churches, according to the Daily News survey of 1902. By the time of the 1911 census a larger artisan population had moved in so the social status of the borough was declining.

The constituency was in general Conservative, but less strongly so than many suburban commuter seats around London. The Labour Party secured 20% of the vote, in a three way contest, in the 1906 election.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1885	William Grantham	Conservative
	1886 by-election	Hon. Sidney Herbert	Conservative
	1895 by-election	Charles Thomson Ritchie	Conservative
	1906	H. O. Arnold-Forster	Liberal Unionist
	1909 by-election	Sir Robert Hermon-Hodge, Bt.	Conservative
	Dec 1910	Ian Zachary Malcolm	Conservative
1918		constituency abolished: see Croydon North & Croydon South

See also

• List of former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies

Election results

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References

• Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1974)
• Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910. by Henry Pelling (Macmillan 1967)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume II 1886-1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1978)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume III 1919-1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1979)
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 6)

Note: In 1906 this constituency was close enough to London to be considered part of a Greater London area. From 1965 Croydon formed part of the administrative area of Greater London. Nevertheless at the time it existed the constituency was a Surrey borough, so it was in the South East region rather than the London region. Both regional historic constituency categories apply.