History
The constituency was created in 1950, when the former two-seat constituency of Derby was split into two single-member seats.
A notable former MP for the seat was its first incumbent, Philip Noel-Baker of the Labour Party. He served as a Cabinet minister in the post-war Attlee government, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1959 for his campaigning for disarmament. He had previously represented the former two-seat constituency of Derby since a by-election in 1936.
The former Cabinet minister Margaret Beckett, who previously represented Lincoln (under her maiden name of Margaret Jackson) from 1974 to 1979, has represented Derby South for the Labour Party since 1983. At that election Beckett won the seat with a majority of just 421 over the Conservatives, but has gradually built up healthier majorities since.
Read more about this topic: Derby South (UK Parliament Constituency)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
““And now this is the way in which the history of your former life has reached my ears!” As he said this he held out in his hand the fatal letter.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)