Scarborough and Whitby (UK Parliament Constituency) - History

History

The constituency name has had two separate periods of existence.

1918–1974

A Scarborough and Whitby division of the North Riding of Yorkshire was created by the Representation of the People Act 1918 after the Boundary Commission of 1917 and first elected a Member of Parliament in the 1918 general election. This division took the entirety of the abolished Parliamentary borough of Scarborough together with the majority of the previous Whitby division and a very small part of Cleveland division. It had a population, in the middle of 1914, of 72,979. The Boundary Commission had initially recommended that the division simply be called 'Scarborough' but an amendment moved by the Government during enactment of their recommendations enacted it from the outset as Scarborough and Whitby. Throughout its 56 year first creation which allowed a full franchise for all resident men it was represented by a Conservative, including during the Attlee Ministry and First Wilson Ministry.

Changes to boundaries

The Initial Report of the Boundary Commission in 1947 made minor changes to the constituency, in line with local government changes which had abolished Guisborough Rural District in 1932 and absorbed it into Whitby Rural District. The new constituency again included the whole of Whitby Rural District, and so gained Hinderwell which was previously within Cleveland constituency. It had an electorate of 67,884 on 15 October 1946. No change was made in the First Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission in 1954.

The Second Periodical Report, published in 1969 recommended that the constituency be divided and its recommendations came into effect at the February 1974 general election abolishing the seat. The Scarborough constituency was thereby re-established, and Whitby joined with Guisborough, Loftus, Saltburn and Brotton to form Cleveland and Whitby.

By the beginning of the Third Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission, Cleveland had been created as a new county, which would normally prevent the Commission from recommending a constituency crossing the border. Several representations were made to the Commission to try to preserve Cleveland and Whitby constituency, but the Commission found itself unable to accept them and recommended putting Scarborough and Whitby together in a new Scarborough despite including the other coastal town, its old name, including Whitby, was finally reinstated in the next review.. This constituency did not include Pickering, which was placed in a new Ryedale constituency.

1997-date

In the Fourth Periodical Report of the Boundary Commission for England, published in 1995 and coming into effect at the 1997 general election, the Scarborough constituency was renamed as Scarborough and Whitby with no change in boundaries.

When the constituency was recreated in 1997, the Labour candidate, Lawrie Quinn, defeated John Sykes, the sitting Conservative MP – one of many locally and national press-predicted unlikely gains for Labour in their landslide victory of that year. The current incumbent, Robert Goodwill, defeated Quinn in 2005 to regain the seat for Conservatives.