Bedford (UK Parliament constituency)

Bedford
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Bedford in Bedfordshire.
Location of Bedfordshire within England.
County	Bedfordshire
Population	101,066 (2011 census)[1]
Electorate	69,019 (December 2010)[2]
Major settlements	Bedford, Kempston
Current constituency
Created	1997
Member of parliament	Mohammad Yasin (Labour)
Number of members	One
Created from	North Bedfordshire and Mid Bedfordshire[3]
1918–1983
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	County constituency
Replaced by	North Bedfordshire
1295–1918
Number of members	1295–1885: Two 1885–1918: One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	East of England

Bedford /ˈbɛdfərd/ is a constituency^{[n 1]} represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since the 2017 general election by Mohammad Yasin of the Labour Party. The seat dates to the earliest century of regular parliaments, in 1295; its double representation was halved in 1885, then being altered by the later-termed Third Reform Act in 1918.^{[n 2]}

Save for two elections in 1974 and one in 1964 when the seat leant to the right bucking the national result, the affiliation of the winning candidate was that of the winning party nationally for the years 1951-2017 – a bellwether. Bedford is one of three seats won (held or gained) by a Labour candidate in 2017 from a total of six covering its county. Yasin's 2017 win was one of 30 net gains of the Labour Party. The seat has become ultra-marginal; a falling majority has characterised the last six consecutive elections.

Constituency profile and boundaries summary

1918-1950: The Municipal Borough of Bedford, the Urban District of Kempston, and the Rural Districts of Bedford and Eaton Socon.

1950-1983: The Municipal Borough of Bedford, the Urban District of Kempston, and part of the Rural District of Bedford.

1997-2010: The Borough of Bedford wards of Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kempston East, Kempston West, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe, and Queen's Park.

2010–present: The Borough of Bedford wards of Brickhill, Castle, Cauldwell, De Parys, Goldington, Harpur, Kempston Central and East, Kempston North, Kempston South, Kingsbrook, Newnham, Putnoe, Queens Park.

Geographical and economic profile

Bedford is a marginal seat between the Labour Party and the Conservatives. The main settlement is Bedford, a well-developed town centre with a considerable amount of social housing relative to Bedfordshire and higher poverty index but on a fast railway link to London and other destinations, the town is at the north end of the Thameslink service to Brighton and is not far from Milton Keynes which has a larger economy. The smaller and contiguous town of Kempston is also in the constituency.

History

Bedford was first represented in the Model Parliament of 1295. The constituency was originally a parliamentary borough electing two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons, and consisted of the five parishes making up the town of Bedford.

Before the Reform Act of 1832, the right to vote was exercised by all freemen and burgesses of the town (whether or not they lived within the borough boundaries) and by all householders who were not receiving alms. This was a fairly wide franchise for the period, but potentially subject to abuse since the Corporation of the borough had unlimited power to create freemen. The Corporation was usually under the influence of the Dukes of Bedford, but their influence usually fell well short of making Bedford a pocket borough.

In 1768, a majority of the corporation apparently fell out with the Duke at the time, and decided to free the borough from his influence. They elected a Huntingdonshire squire,^{[n 3]} Sir Robert Bernard, as Recorder of the borough, and made 500 new freemen, mostly Bernard's Huntingdonshire neighbours or tenants. As there were only 540 householders, this gave him the effective power to choose Bedford's MPs; at the next election the defeated candidates petitioned against the result, attempting to establish that so many non-residents should not be allowed to vote, but the Commons dismissed the petition and confirmed the right of all the freemen, however created, to vote.

Bernard cemented his control with the creation of hundreds of further freemen in the next few years; at around the same period he lent the Corporation £950, and it is not unreasonable to assume this was payment for services rendered. However, in 1789, the young Duke of Bedford managed to regain the Corporation's loyalty, and had 350 of his own retainers made freemen.

Even at other periods, the influence of the Dukes seems sometimes to have been more nominal than real. In the 1750s and 1760s, before Bernard's intervention, a frequent compromise was that the Duke nominated one MP and the Corporation (representing the interests of the town) the other; but it seems that on occasion the Duke had to be flexible to retain the semblance of local deference towards him, and that his "nominee" had in reality been imposed upon him. Nor was the outcome invariably successfully predetermined: at the 1830 election the result swung on one individual's vote – the defeated candidate being Lord John Russell, who was not only one of the Whig leaders but The Duke of Bedford's son.

In 1831, the population of the borough was 6,959, and contained 1,491 houses. This was sufficient for Bedford to retain both its MPs under the Great Reform Act, with its boundaries unaltered. The reformed franchise introduced in 1832 gave the borough 1,572 inhabitants qualified to vote. The town was growing, and Bedford retained its borough status until the 1918 general election, although under the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885, its representation was reduced to a single MP. On the eve of the First World War, its population was just under 40,000, of whom 6,500 people were eligible to vote.

In 1918, the borough was abolished; but the town's name was applied to the county constituency into which it was placed. The new constituency (strictly speaking The Bedford division of Bedfordshire) covered the northern end of the county and included Kempston and Eaton Socon together with the surrounding rural area. A boundary change which came into effect at the 1950 election reduced its size somewhat, part of the Bedford Rural District including Eaton Socon being transferred to the Mid Bedfordshire constituency.

In 1983, further boundary changes took Kempston out of the constituency, and its name was changed to North Bedfordshire, although it was recognisably still the same constituency and Bedford itself was still much its largest component. The following boundary review, effective from the 1997 general election, restored the Bedford name.

In the latest boundary changes, the constituency lost all the rural settlements and villages to the Mid Bedfordshire and North East Bedfordshire constituencies. This means that the Bedford Constituency is now solely formed from the towns of Bedford and Kempston.

Members of Parliament

Elections

Election in the 1920s

General Election 1929: Bedford

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Richard Wells	16,724	46.0	-6.1
	Liberal	Alfred Machin	10,520	28.9	-0.5
	Labour	George Dixon	9,147	25.1	+6.6
Majority			6,204	17.1	-5.6
Turnout				79.1	-2.6
	Unionist hold		Swing	-2.8

General Election 1924: Bedford

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Richard Wells	15,000	52.1	+1.2
	Liberal	Milner Gray	8,451	29.4	-19.7
	Labour	George Dixon	5,330	18.5	n/a
Majority			6,549	22.7
Turnout				81.7
	Unionist hold		Swing	+10.4

General Election 1923: Bedford

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Richard Wells	12,906	50.9	+0.6
	Liberal	Milner Gray	12,449	49.1	+41.3
Majority			457	1.8
Turnout				73.5
	Unionist hold		Swing	-20.4

Lady Lawson

General Election 1922: Bedford

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Richard Wells	13,460	50.3	n/a
	National Liberal	Frederick Kellaway	5,714	21.4	-38.3
	Labour	Arthur Sells	5,477	20.5	-19.8
	Liberal	Lady Lawson	2,075	7.8	n/a
Majority			7,746	28.9
Turnout			26,726	79.1
	Unionist gain from National Liberal		Swing

Bedford by-election, 1921

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
C	Liberal	Frederick Kellaway	14,397	59.7	-13.0
	Labour	Frederick Fox Riley	9,731	40.3	n/a
Majority			4,666	19.4
	Liberal hold		Swing	n/a
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

Election in the 1910s

Kellaway

General Election 1918: Bedford

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
C	Liberal	Frederick Kellaway	10,933	72.7	+22.5
	Independent	Henry Burridge	4,096	27.3	n/a
Majority			6,837	45.4	+45.0
Turnout				45.2	-46.0
	Liberal hold		Swing	n/a
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

General Election 1914/15

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

• Liberal: Frederick Kellaway
• Unionist: Gerald de la Pryme Hargreaves
• Labour: Frederick Fox Riley

Kellaway

General Election December 1910 Bedford^[21]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Frederick Kellaway	2,773	50.2	+1.7
	Conservative	Walter Attenborough	2,754	49.8	-1.7
Majority			19	0.4	3.4
Turnout				91.2	-2.3
	Liberal gain from Conservative		Swing	+1.7

General Election January 1910 Bedford^[21]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Walter Attenborough	2,919	51.5
	Liberal	Percy Barlow	2,750	48.5
Majority			169	3.0
Turnout				93.5
	Conservative gain from Liberal		Swing

Elections in the 1900s

Barlow

General Election 1906 Bedford^[21]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Percy Barlow	2,771	54.9	+8.3
	Conservative	Charles Pym	2,278	45.1	−8.3
Majority			493	9.8	N/A
Turnout			5,049	91.2	+7.1
Registered electors			5,535
	Liberal gain from Conservative		Swing	+8.3

Pym

General Election 1900 Bedford^[21]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Charles Pym	2,115	53.4	+1.2
	Liberal	Percy Barlow	1,848	46.6	−1.2
Majority			267	6.8	+2.4
Turnout			3,963	84.1	−6.5
Registered electors			4,711
	Conservative hold		Swing	+1.2

See also

• List of Parliamentary constituencies in Bedfordshire
• Opinion polling in United Kingdom constituencies, 2010–15

Notes

References

Sources

• Beatson, Robert (1807). A chronological register of both houses of the British Parliament, Volume II.
• F. W. S. Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1832–1885" (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
• F W S Craig, "British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–1949" (Glasgow: Political Reference Publications, 1969)
• Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III (2nd edition – London: St Martin's Press, 1961)
• T. H. B. Oldfield, The Representative History of Great Britain and Ireland (London: Baldwin, Cradock & Joy, 1816)
• J Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 – England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Edward Porritt and Annie G Porritt, The Unreformed House of Commons (Cambridge University Press, 1903)
• Henry Stooks Smith, "The Parliaments of England from 1715 to 1847" (2nd edition, edited by FWS Craig – Chichester: Parliamentary Reference Publications, 1973)
• Frederic A Youngs, jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979)
• The Constitutional Year Book for 1913 (London: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 1913)