The seat since its resurrection in 1983 has proven to be somewhat of a bellwether being held always by the incumbent government although it currently has a significantly higher vote share for the Conservatives than the average constituency
Boundaries
1928-1885: The parliamentary borough.
1885-1918: The existing parliamentary borough, and so much of the municipal borough of Stafford as was not already included in the parliamentary borough.[3]
1918–1950: The Municipal Borough of Stafford, the Rural District of Gnosall, the Rural District consisting of the civil parishes of Blymhill and Weston-under-Lizard, the Rural District of Stafford except the detached part of the civil parish of Colwich, and part of the Rural District of Cannock.
1983–1997: The Borough of Stafford wards of Baswich, Beaconside, Castletown, Church Eaton, Common, Coton, Doxey, Eccleshall, Forebridge, Gnosall, Highfields, Holmcroft, Littleworth, Manor, Milford, Parkside, Rowley, Seighford, Swynnerton, Tillington, Weeping Cross, and Woodseaves, and the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme wards of Loggerheads, Madeley, and Whitmore.
1997–2010: The Borough of Stafford wards of Baswich, Beaconside, Castletown, Common, Coton, Doxey, Forebridge, Haywood, Highfields, Holmcroft, Littleworth, Manor, Milford, Parkside, Rowley, Seighford, Tillington, and Weeping Cross, and the District of South Staffordshire wards of Acton Trussell, Bishopswood and Lapley, Penkridge North East, Penkridge South East, and Penkridge West.
2010–2024: The Borough of Stafford wards of Baswich, Castletown, Common, Coton, Doxey, Haywood and Hixon, Highfields and Western Downs, Holmcroft, Littleworth, Manor, Milford, Parkside, Rowley, Seighford, Tillington, and Weeping Cross, and the District of South Staffordshire wards of Penkridge North East and Acton Trussell, Penkridge South East, Penkridge West, and Wheaton Aston, Bishopswood and Lapley.
The constituency forms the southerly part of the borough of Stafford, including the eponymous town itself plus the Penkridge area.
The Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme wards of: Loggerheads; Maer & Whitmore.
The Borough of Stafford wards of: Baswich; Common; Coton; Doxey & Castletown; Eccleshall; Forebridge; Gnosall & Woodseaves; Highfields & Western Downs; Holmcroft; Littleworth; Manor; Penkside; Rowley; Seighford & Church Eaton; Weeping Cross & Wildwood.[4]
The constituency will undergo significant changes due to the re-organisation of seats within Staffordshire. The parts in the South Staffordshire District, including Penkridge, together with areas to the east of Stafford, will be included in the newly created constituency of Stone, Great Wyrley and Penkridge. To compensate, the boundaries will be extended to the north and west, to include Eccleshall, Gnosall and the two Newcastle-under-Lyme wards, currently part of the constituency of Stone (to be abolished).
Workless claimants, registered jobseekers, were in November 2012 significantly lower than the national average of 3.8%, at 2.7% of the population based on a statistical compilation by The Guardian.[5]
The town was represented in Parliament by leading playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan at the end of the 18th century.
Political history
Taken together with the Stafford and Stone seat which existed during the 33-year gap mentioned above, since 1910 when the last Liberal served the seat, the Conservative party has had five members and the Labour party two (this total includes the present member). In summary:
Labour saw a bellwether result in their 1945 landslide victory, but Conservative Hugh Fraser regained the seat at the next election in 1950 in the successor seat which he held until his death in 1984.
Effects from the creation of the Stone constituency in 1997 made Stafford somewhat more marginal: sitting Stafford MP Bill Cash followed some of his electors into the Stone constituency, which he won, and after a 47-year lack of a member, Labour's David Kidney gained the constituency in his party's landslide victory in 1997. The defeated Conservative candidate in 1997 was David Cameron, who in the next election was elected as the MP for the safe seat of Witney, and became the Conservative Party leader in 2005, and Prime Minister in 2010.
Members of Parliament
Stafford parliamentary borough
MPs 1295–1640
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (January 2011)
Constituency created (1295)[6]
Parliament
First member
Second member
1295
William Reynor
John Beyton
1337
Hugh Snel[7]
1353
Hugh Snel[7]
1360
Hugh Snel[7]
1362
Hugh Snel[7]
1363
Hugh Snel[7]
1365
Hugh Snel[7]
1366
Hugh Snel[7]
1368
Hugh Snel[7]
1369
Hugh Snel[7]
1371
Hugh Snel[7]
1373
Hugh Snel[7]
1376
Hugh Snel[7]
1377
Hugh Snel (murdered 1380)[7]
1386
Thomas Jockery
Richard Stanford[8]
1388 (Feb)
John Newton
Nicholas Snell[8]
1388 (Sep)
John Newton
Richard Stanford[8]
1390 (Jan)
John Newton
John Snell[8]
1390 (Nov)
1391
John Newton
Richard Stanford[8]
1393
Henry Warrilewe
John Baxter[8]
1394
1395
John Wylaston
John Baxter[8]
1397 (Jan)
John Wylaston
John Clifton[8]
1397 (Sep)
1399
John Wylaston
Richard Stanford[8]
1401
1402
Richard Stanford
Thomas Barber[8]
1404 (Jan)
Roger Coton
Adam Hewster[8]
1404 (Oct)
1406
Thomas Jockery
John Huntingdon[8]
1407
Thomas Jockery
John Huntingdon[8]
1410
1411
Thomas Barber
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1413 (Feb)
1413 (May)
Thomas Barber
Adam Edgeley[8]
1414 (Apr)
1414 (Nov)
Sampson Erdeswyk
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1415
1416 (Mar)
Henry Fenton
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1416 (Oct)
1417
1419
John Harper
John Parker[8]
1420
John Harper
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1421 (May)
John Harper
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1421 (Dec)
Adam Edgeley
Robert Whitgreve[8]
1495
Humphrey Barber[9]
1510–1523
No names known[10]
1529
Thomas Stanford, died and replaced by 1553 by Sampson Erdeswick
List of parliamentary constituencies in West Midlands (region)
Notes
^A county constituency (for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer)
^As with all constituencies, the constituency elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election at least every five years.
References
^"Electorate Figures – Boundary Commission for England". 2011 Electorate Figures. Boundary Commission for England. 4 March 2011. Archived from the original on 6 November 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
^"'Stafford', June 1983 up to May 1997". ElectionWeb Project. Cognitive Computing Limited. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
^"Chap. 23. Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885". The Public General Acts of the United Kingdom passed in the forty-eighth and forty-ninth years of the reign of Queen Victoria. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode. 1885. pp. 111–198.
^"The Parliamentary Constituencies Order 2023". Schedule 1 Part 8 West Midlands region.
^Unemployment claimants by constituency The Guardian
^"Tamworth Parliamentary Borough 1275–1832". The Staffordshire Encyclopaedia. Retrieved 25 October 2010.
^ abcdefghijklmWedgwood, Josiah C. (1917). Parliamentary History of Staffordshire, Volume I. William Salt Archaeological Society. p. 74.
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstu"History of Parliament". Retrieved 3 October 2011.
^Cavill. The English Parliaments of Henry VII 1485-1504.
^ abcdefghijk"History of Parliament". Retrieved 3 October 2011.
^STAFFORD, Henry (by 1520-55 or later), of Pickering, Yorks, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
^ abcdefghij"History of Parliament". Retrieved 3 October 2011.
^ abcdCobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London|| Thomas Hansard, 1808) [1]
^ abMaija Jansson (ed.), Proceedings in Parliament, 1614 (House of Commons) (Philadelphia|| American Philosophical Society, 1988)
^ abcdeLeigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "S" (part 4)
^Chetwynd was initially declared re-elected in 1710, but on petition (in a dispute over the franchise), he was adjudged not have been duly elected and his opponent, Vernon, was seated in his place. (Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (1807), Volume 1, p 177)
^ abElde's opponent, Chetwynd, petitioned against the 1724 result. Elde was "unanimously expelled the House for having offered to compromise the petition against his return", and Chetwynd was seated in his place. (Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847, Volume 2 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1845), p 45)
^ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuStooks Smith, Henry (1845). The Parliaments of England, from 1st George I., to the Present Time. Vol II: Oxfordshire to Wales Inclusive. London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. pp. 45–47.
^ abChurton, Edward (1838). The Assembled Commons or Parliamentary Biographer: 1838. pp. 42, 54.
^ abMosse, Richard Bartholomew (1838). The Parliamentary Guide: a concise history of the Members of both Houses, etc. pp. 141, 147.
^After Goodricke resigned to contest another constituency in May 1835, the House of Commons refused to issue a writ for a new election until February 1837, when the motion to issue a writ was passed by a single vote. (F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885, 2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989, p 283)
^The 1868 election was declared void on petition and a new election was held – F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885. (F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885, 2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989, p 283)
^BOSANQUET, His Honour Sir Samuel Ronald Courthope', Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2016; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 2014 accessed 20 Sept 2017
^ abcdefghijklmnopqCraig, F. W. S., ed. (1977). British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (e-book) (1st ed.). London: Macmillan Press. ISBN 978-1-349-02349-3.
^"The Representation of Stafford". Staffordshire Sentinel and Commercial & General Advertiser. 3 April 1880. p. 8 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"East Staffordshire Election". Birmingham Journal. 14 November 1868. p. 2 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"Stafford". Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser. 27 April 1859. p. 11 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"Borough of Stafford". Staffordshire Advertiser. 3 July 1852. pp. 1, 6–7 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"Public Dinner to John Bourne, Esq., One of the Candidates at the Late Election for the Borough of Stafford". Staffordshire Advertiser. 17 July 1852. p. 1 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"To the Worthy and Independent Electors of the Borough of Stafford". Staffordshire Advertiser. 7 August 1847. p. 1 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^"Wolverhampton Chronicle and Staffordshire Advertiser". 4 August 1847. p. 2 – via British Newspaper Archive.
^ abSalmon, Philip. "Stafford". The History of Parliament. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
Sources
Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
Britain Votes/Europe Votes By-Election Supplement 1983–, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1985)
Robert Beatson, A Chronological Register of Both Houses of Parliament (London: Longman, Hurst, Res & Orme, 1807) [2]
D Brunton & D H Pennington, Members of the Long Parliament (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1954)
Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England, from the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803 (London: Thomas Hansard, 1808) [3]
Henry Stooks Smith, The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847, Volume 2 (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1845) The Parliaments of England: From 1st George I., to the Present Time
The History of Parliament: the House of Commons - Stafford, Borough, 1386 to 1832
External links
Stafford UK Parliament constituency (boundaries April 2010 – May 2024) at MapIt UK
Stafford UK Parliament constituency (boundaries from June 2024) at MapIt UK