Tower Hamlets (UK Parliament constituency)

Tower Hamlets
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
County	Middlesex
1832–1885
Number of members	Two
Replaced by	Bow and Bromley, Limehouse, Mile End, Poplar, St George, Stepney and Whitechapel
Created from	Middlesex

Tower Hamlets was a parliamentary borough constituency in, Middlesex, England from 1832 to 1885. It elected two Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The constituency was one of five new parliamentary boroughs in the metropolitan area of London enfranchised by the Reform Act 1832.

The constituency consisted of a number of communities in the East End of London, between the City of London and the eastern boundary of Middlesex.

Boundaries

Boundaries 1832–1868

The boundaries of the parliamentary borough were defined by the Parliamentary Boundaries Act 1832 as "The several Divisions of the Liberty of the Tower, and the Tower Division of Ossulston Hundred".

It comprised the following civil parishes and places:

• Bethnal Green
• Bow
• Bromley
• Hackney
• Limehouse
• Poplar
• St Botolph Without Aldgate

• St George in the East
• Shoreditch
• Spitalfields
• Tower of London
• Old Tower Without
• Wapping
• Whitechapel (part)

Boundaries 1868–1885

File:TowerHamlets1868.png

Tower Hamlets in the Metropolitan area, showing boundaries used from 1868 to 1885.

The Representation of the People Act 1867 widened the parliamentary franchise and also effected a redistribution of seats. This, along with a rapidly increasing population in the East End, resulted in the existing parliamentary borough of Tower Hamlets being reduced in size, with the parishes of Bethnal Green, Hackney and Shoreditch forming a separate Hackney constituency. The reformed Tower Hamlets was defined as comprising:

• The Parish of St. George's-in-the-East
• The Hamlet of Mile End Old Town
• The Poplar Union (Bow, Bromley and Poplar)
• The Stepney Union (Limehouse, Ratcliffe, Shadwell and Wapping)
• The Whitechapel Union (Holy Trinity Minories, Mile End New Town, Norton Folgate, Old Artillery Ground, St Botolph Without Aldgate, St Katherine by the Tower, Spitalfields, Whitechapel.)
• The Tower of London.

Redistribution

In 1885 the parliamentary borough was split into seven single-member divisions. These were Bow and Bromley, Limehouse, Mile End, Poplar, St George, Stepney and Whitechapel.

Members of Parliament

Election			First member	First party	Second member	Second party
		1832	Stephen Lushington	Liberal	Sir William Clay, Bt	Liberal
		1841	Charles Richard Fox	Liberal
		1847	George Thompson	Liberal
		1852	Charles Salisbury Butler	Liberal
		1857			Rt Hon. Acton Smee Ayrton	Liberal
		1868	Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda	Liberal
		1874			Charles Thomson Ritchie	Conservative
		1880	James Bryce	Liberal
		1885	Constituency abolished

Elections

Turnout, in multi-member elections, is estimated by dividing the number of votes by two. To the extent that electors did not use both their votes, the figure given will be an underestimate.

Change is calculated for individual candidates, when a party had more than one candidate in an election or the previous one. When a party had only one candidate in an election and the previous one change is calculated for the party vote.

Sources

• Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1977)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume I 1832-1885, edited by M. Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume II 1886-1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1978)