Croydon South (historic UK Parliament constituency)

This seat should not be confused with the current Croydon South constituency

Croydon South
Former Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
County	Surrey until 1965, then Greater London
1955 (1955)–1974 (1974)
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Croydon Central
Created from	Croydon East and Croydon West
1918 (1918)–1950 (1950)
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Replaced by	Croydon East and Croydon West
Created from	Croydon

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

It was created for the 1918 general election when the County Borough of Croydon had grown and was split into two parliamentary seats. In 1974, the seat was renamed Croydon Central following the 1965 addition of Purley and Coulsdon to the London Borough of Croydon and a new seat of Croydon South was created to the south of its previous location, with little overlap.

Boundaries

Members of Parliament

MPs 1918–1950

Election		Name	Party	Notes
	1918	Ian Malcolm	Conservative	previously MP for Croydon
	1919 by-election	Allan Macgregor Smith	Conservative
	1923	William Mitchell-Thomson	Conservative
	1932 by-election	Herbert Williams	Conservative
	1945	David Rees-Williams	Labour
	1950	constituency abolished

From 1950 until 1955, the seat was divided into east and west, represented by Conservatives Herbert Williams and Richard Thompson respectively.

MPs 1955–1974

Election		Name	Party
	1955	Richard Thompson	Conservative
	1966	David Winnick	Labour
	1970	Richard Thompson	Conservative
	February 1974	constituency abolished

Election results

General Election 1945: Croydon South
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Lt. Col. David Rees-Williams	27,650	53.4	24.4
	Conservative	Sir Herbert Williams	24,147	46.6	−15.7
Majority			3,503	6.8
Turnout			51,797	70.1
	Labour gain from Conservative		Swing

General Election 1935: Croydon South
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Herbert Williams	31971	62.3%	-18.0%
	Labour	T Crawford	14,900	29.0%	+9.3%
	Liberal	D W A Llewellyn	4,440	8.7%	+8.7%
Majority			17,071	33.3%
Turnout			45,860	65.2%
	Conservative hold		Swing

Politics and history of the constituency

The seat was created in 1918 and the first MP was Ian Malcolm who had been the MP for all of Croydon. H.T. Muggeridge, father of Malcolm Muggeridge, fought the seat for Labour four times from 1918, later becoming MP for Romford. The seat saw a by-election in 1932, won by Herbert Williams.

Croydon South had twice seen Croydon's only Labour MPs before the 1990s. David Rees-Williams had held the seat from the 1945 Labour landslide until unfavourable boundary changes in 1950. David Winnick won the seat in 1966 before losing in 1970. Otherwise the seat, and indeed the rest of Croydon, had always been firm Conservative territory.

From 1950 until 1955, the seat was divided into east and west, represented by Conservatives Herbert Williams and Richard Thompson respectively.

References

Sources

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 6)