Westminster Abbey was a

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other poli ...

in 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 suprem ...

. It 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 o ...

(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. T ...

by 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 thei ...

system of election. It was created for the 1918 general election, and included all of the former Westminster constituency, as reduced in area in 1885, apart from its

Knightsbridge Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End. Toponymy Knightsbridge is an ancien ...

exclave, plus all of the former Strand constituency. It continued to exist until the 1950 general election, when it was merged with the two-seat City of London constituency to form a single-member seat named

Cities of London and Westminster Cities of London and Westminster (also known as City of London and Westminster South from 1974 to 1997) is a List of United Kingdom Parliament constituencies, constituency returning a single Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Par ...

. The seat was sometimes known as the Abbey Division of Westminster or simply Abbey. It was held by the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

for its entire existence.

Boundaries

The

City of Westminster The City of Westminster is a city and borough in Inner London. It is the site of the United Kingdom's Houses of Parliament and much of the British government. It occupies a large area of central Greater London, including most of the West En ...

is a district of

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was ...

. Its southern boundary is on the north bank of the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

. In 1918 it was to the west of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

, to the south of

Holborn Holborn ( or ) is a district in central London, which covers the south-eastern part of the London Borough of Camden and a part ( St Andrew Holborn Below the Bars) of the Ward of Farringdon Without in the City of London. The area has its ro ...

and St. Pancras and to the east of

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

and

Chelsea Chelsea or Chelsey may refer to: Places Australia * Chelsea, Victoria Canada * Chelsea, Nova Scotia * Chelsea, Quebec United Kingdom * Chelsea, London, an area of London, bounded to the south by the River Thames ** Chelsea (UK Parliament consti ...

. It consisted of the eastern part of the

Metropolitan Borough of Westminster The Metropolitan Borough of Westminster was a metropolitan borough in the County of London, England, from 1900 to 1965. City status By royal charter dated 29 October 1900, the borough was granted the title City of Westminster. Westminster had o ...

, comprising the then wards of

Covent Garden Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...

, Great Marlborough, Pall Mall, Regent, St. Anne, St. John, St. Margaret,

Strand Strand may refer to: Topography *The flat area of land bordering a body of water, a: ** Beach ** Shoreline * Strand swamp, a type of swamp habitat in Florida Places Africa * Strand, Western Cape, a seaside town in South Africa * Strand Street ...

and part of

Charing Cross Charing Cross ( ) is a junction in Westminster, London, England, where six routes meet. Clockwise from north these are: the east side of Trafalgar Square leading to St Martin's Place and then Charing Cross Road; the Strand leading to the City ...

History

The constituency was created in 1918 from the former seats of

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

. From 1918 to 1950, it returned five

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

MPs, with Labour and the Liberals having little support in the area. After

William Burdett-Coutts William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett Burdett-Coutts (20 January 1851 – 28 July 1921), born William Lehman Ashmead-Bartlett, was an American-born British Conservative politician and social climber who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1921 ...

, the first MP for the seat, died in 1921 there was a by-election where all three candidates claimed to be anti-waste. At the time the

Anti-Waste League The Anti-Waste League was a political party in the United Kingdom, founded in 1921 by the newspaper proprietor Lord Rothermere. Formation The formation of the League was announced in a January 1921 edition of the ''Sunday Pictorial'' with Rotherme ...

was active. It was formed to advance the political ambitions of the newspaper owner Lord Rothermere. The objects of the League were to insist upon measures being taken to restore the country to solvency, urge a wholesale reduction of expenditure, fight the battle of local rates and oppose sham Anti-Waste candidates. The Conservative candidate John Nicholson won the election, but the Anti-Waste League (whose candidate later became a Conservative MP) polled respectably and the Liberal candidate (a former MP) came third. After Nicholson's death in 1924 a further by-election took place. The new Conservative candidate Otho Nicholson was challenged by the prominent politician

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

as a Constitutionalist, the formidable Labour stalwart and future MP Fenner Brockway, and a little-known Liberal. The Constitutionalist label was one used by a number of candidates, mostly ex-Liberals like Churchill, in the 1920s. The Constitutionalists did not function as a party and most of them ended up joining the Liberal or Conservative Parties. Nicholson beat Churchill with a very small majority of 43. By the

1945 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1945. Africa * 1945 South-West African legislative election Asia * 1945 Indian general election Australia * 1945 Fremantle by-election Europe * 1945 Albanian parliamentary election * 1945 Bulgarian ...

, the electorate of the area had dropped by almost half since the pre-war by-election. Labour almost equalled the 27% vote Brockway had received in 1924. The Independent Progressive candidate of 1939 reappeared as a

Communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

candidate and received 17.6% of the vote. The Conservatives still had an absolute majority of the vote. For the 1950 general election, the seat became the central part of the new constituency of

Members of Parliament

Elections

1910s

1920s

1930s

1940s

Notes

References

* * ''Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972'', compiled and edited by F. W. S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1972) * ''Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume III 1919-1945'', edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (The Harvester Press 1976) * ''British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949'', compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (The Macmillan Press 1979) * ''Minor Parties at British Parliamentary Elections 1885-1974'', compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (The Macmillan Press 1975) {{Historic constituencies in London , 1832 = n , 1868 = n , 1885 = n , 1918 = y , 1950 = n , 1955 = n , 1974 = n , 1983 = n , 1997 = n Parliamentary constituencies in London (historic) Politics of the City of Westminster Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1918 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1950 20th century in London