Burslem was a

borough constituency In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one member to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons. Within the United Kingdom there are five bodies with members elected by ...

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

which returned one

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

. Elections were held using the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

voting system.

Boundaries

The County Borough of Stoke-on-Trent wards numbers one, two, three, four, five, six, seven and eight. The constituency was created for the 1918 general election, and abolished for the 1950 general election. From 1885 to 1918 the Stoke-on-Trent area had been divided into two constituencies: Stoke and Hanley. In 1918, the area was divided into three constituencies: Stoke, Hanley and a new seat called Burslem. Burslem was thus made up from part of the former Stoke seat and part of Hanley.

History

Until 1918, both Stoke and Hanley had been represented by Liberal MPs. The Liberal Party in the area was heavily influenced by support for radical land reform policies such as Site Value Rating and the Single Tax policy. These policies were advocated by R.L. Outhwaite, the MP for Hanley and Josiah Wedgwood, the MP for neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme. After 1918, they both left the Liberal Party and joined the Labour Party. There they influenced

Andrew MacLaren Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

. who was for many years the

standard-bearer A standard-bearer, also known as a flag-bearer is a person (soldier or civilian) who bears an emblem known as a standard or military colours, i.e. either a type of flag or an inflexible but mobile image, which is used (and often honoured) as a ...

for the Labour Party and an advocate of Site Value Rating. At the 1931 general election, the supporters of land reform were split when MacLaren was opposed by a candidate who advocated a Single Tax policy. He returned to Parliament in 1935, but left the Labour Party in 1943 and sought re-election as an Independent. When Outhwaite and Wedgwood left the Liberal Party in 1919, those who remained made the Liberal Party less radical. For the next 20 years the Liberal Party and the Unionist Party experimented with different approaches to electoral politics, often coming together to support the same candidate, as in 1922, 1924, 1931 and 1935.

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 1910s

Elections in the 1920s

Elections in the 1930s

Elections in the 1940s

General Election 1939–40 Another General Election was scheduled to take place before the end of 1940. In 1939 the parties were preparing for an election, and by the end of that year, the following candidates had been selected: *Labour:

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Burslem (Uk Parliament Constituency) Parliamentary constituencies in Stoke-on-Trent (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1918 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1950