Southwark

Southwark was a constituency centred on the Southwark district of South London. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the English Parliament from 1295 to 1707, to the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and to the UK Parliament until its first abolition for the 1885 general election. A seat of the same name, covering a smaller area than the last form of the earlier seat in the west of the original and beyond its boundaries to the southwest, was created in 1950 and abolished in 1974. In its last creation the seat's broad electorate heavily supported the three successive Labour candidates, who won Southwark with a majority of greater than 36% of the votes cast at its eight elections – an extremely safe seat. Creation, boundaries, abolition First creation – or Southwark dual-member constituency The constituency was created in 1295 as a parliamentary borough (also known as burgh) when its electorate was restricted to the owners of certain properties in its main streets of its burgage, returning two 'burgesses' as they were sometimes called. Its electorate was expanded to a more standard franchise in 1832. In 1833 the electorate was 4,775 adult males and this had risen to 23,472 by 1880. The Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 replaced the two-member constituency with the seats West Southwark, Rotherhithe and Bermondsey.