Queen's University of Belfast was a

university constituency A university constituency is a constituency, used in elections to a legislature, that represents the members of one or more universities rather than residents of a geographical area. These may or may not involve plural voting, in which voters ar ...

represented in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

of the United Kingdom Parliament from

1918 The ceasefire that effectively ended the World War I, First World War took place on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of this year. Also in this year, the Spanish flu pandemic killed 50–100 million people wor ...

until

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) elected by the

first-past-the-post First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or First-preference votes, first-preference, and the cand ...

voting system.

Franchise

The MP was rather elected by the graduates of

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

First Dáil

After the 1918 election, Sinn Féin invited all those elected for constituencies in Ireland to sit as TDs in

Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( ; , ) is the lower house and principal chamber of the Oireachtas, which also includes the president of Ireland and a senate called Seanad Éireann.Article 15.1.2° of the Constitution of Ireland reads: "The Oireachtas shall co ...

rather than in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. All those elected for Irish constituencies were included in the roll of the Dáil but only those elected for Sinn Féin sat in the

First Dáil First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

. In May 1921, the Dáil passed a resolution declaring that

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

to the House of Commons of Northern Ireland and the House of Commons of Southern Ireland would be used as the election for the

Second Dáil The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

and that the First Dáil would be dissolved on the assembly of the new body. The graduates of Queen's would then have been represented in the Dáil by the four-seat constituency of

Queen's University of Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

, which also returned no representatives for Sinn Féin.

Members of Parliament

Politics and History of the constituency

University constituencies had existed in the United Kingdom Parliament and its predecessors since 1603 and in 1918 Queen's was enfranchised as such. When the Parliament of Northern Ireland was established, the same franchise was preserved - see Queen's University of Belfast (Northern Ireland Parliament constituency). As with most other Northern Ireland seats in this period, the electorate was heavily inclined towards the Ulster Unionists, with no contests for the Westminster seat taking place at all in the interwar years. Under the

Representation of the People Act 1948 The Representation of the People Act 1948 ( 11 & 12 Geo. 6. c. 65) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that altered the law relating to parliamentary and local elections. It is noteworthy for abolishing plural voting for parlia ...

, university constituencies at Westminster were abolished with effect at the

1950 United Kingdom general election The 1950 United Kingdom general election was the first to be held after a full term of a majority Labour Party (UK), Labour government. The general election was held on Thursday 23 February 1950, and was also the first to be held following the a ...

Election results

Walker, ''Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1918–1992'', page 16 Walker, ''Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1918–1992'', page 19 ''Resignation of Sinclair'' Walker, ''Parliamentary election results in Ireland, 1918–1992'', page 20

References

{{County Antrim constituencies Historic Westminster constituencies in Belfast Queen's University Belfast University constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom Dáil constituencies in Northern Ireland (historic) Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1918 Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1950