City_of_Chester_(constituency)

City of Chester (UK Parliament constituency)

UK Parliament constituency since 1918

The City of Chester is a constituency^{[n 1]} represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2 December 2022 by Samantha Dixon of the Labour Party. She was elected in the by-election held following the resignation of Chris Matheson MP on 21 October 2022.^[3]

Quick Facts County, Population ...

City of Chester
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of City of Chester in Cheshire
Location of Cheshire within England
County	Cheshire
Population	92,995 (2011 census)^[1]
Electorate	74,397 (2018)^[2]
Major settlements	Chester
Current constituency
Created	1918
Member of Parliament	Samantha Dixon (Labour)
Seats	One
1545–1918
Seats	1545–1880: Two 1885–1918: One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency

The 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies proposes the constituency be split in two,^[4] with the majority, comprising areas to the north of the River Dee, including the city centre, being combined with the town of Neston to form Chester North and Neston, to be first contested at the next general election. Areas to the south of the river will be added to Eddisbury, to be renamed Chester South and Eddisbury.^[5]

Profile

The constituency covers the English city of Chester on the border of Wales and parts of the surrounding Cheshire West and Chester unitary authority, including the villages of: Aldford, Capenhurst, Christleton, Guilden Sutton, Mollington, Newtown, Pulford and Saughall.

Much of the city of Chester itself is residential of varying characteristics, with more middle-class areas such as Upton and the large rural former council estate of Blacon which is, except where purchased under the right to buy; owned and managed by the local housing association, Chester And District Housing Trust.^[6]

History

As part of a county palatine with a parliament of its own until the early-sixteenth century, Chester was not enfranchised (sent no MPs) until the Chester and Cheshire (Constituencies) Act 1542 (34 & 35 Hen. 8. c. 13), since when it returned two MPs to Parliament as a parliamentary borough. It continued to elect two MPs until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 which reduced its representation to one MP.^[7]

Under the Representation of the People Act 1918, the parliamentary borough was abolished and replaced by a county division, gaining rural areas from the neighbouring constituencies of Eddisbury and Wirral.^[8] Since then, the boundaries of the constituency have remained relatively consistent, primarily reflecting changes in local authority and ward boundaries.

Boundaries

Map of current boundaries

1918–1950: The County Borough of Chester, the Urban District of Hoole, and the Rural District of Chester.^[9]

1950–1974: As prior but with minor boundary changes to align with the revised boundaries of the Rural District of Chester.^[9]

1974–1983: The County Borough of Chester, and the Rural District of Chester.^[9]

Hoole Urban District had been absorbed by the County Borough of Chester in 1954, but the constituency boundaries remained unchanged.

1983–1997: The City of Chester wards of Blacon Hall, Boughton, Boughton Heath, Christleton, College, Curzon, Dee Point, Dodleston, Grosvenor, Hoole, Newton, Plas Newton, Sealand, Upton Grange, Upton Heath, Vicars Cross, and Westminster.^[10]

Rural areas to the north of Chester, comprising the wards of Elton, Mollington and Saughall, transferred to the new constituency of Ellesmere Port and Neston.

1997–2010: The City of Chester wards of Blacon Hall, Boughton, Boughton Heath, Christledon, College, Curzon, Dee Point, Dodleston, Grosvenor, Hoole, Mollington, Newton, Plas Newton, Saughall, Sealand, Upton Grange, Upton Heath, Vicars Cross, and Westminster.^[11]

The wards of Mollington and Saughall transferred back from Ellesmere Port and Neston.

2010–2019: The Parliamentary Constituencies (England) Order 2007 defined the boundaries as:

The City of Chester wards of Blacon Hall, Blacon Lodge, Boughton, Boughton Heath, Christleton, City and St Anne's, College, Curzon and Westminster, Dodleston, Handbridge and St Mary's, Hoole All Saints, Hoole Groves, Huntington, Lache Park, Mollington, Newton Brook, Newton St Michael's, Saughall, Upton Grange, Upton Westlea, and Vicars Cross.^[12]

Minor changes to reflect revised ward boundaries.

However, before the new boundaries came into force for the 2010 election, the districts making up the county of Cheshire were abolished on 1 April 2009, being replaced by four unitary authorities. Consequently, the constituency's boundaries became:

The Cheshire West and Chester wards of Blacon, Boughton, Chester City, Chester Villages (part), Dodleston and Huntington, Farndon (part), Garden Quarter, Great Boughton, Handbridge Park, Hoole, Lache, Little Neston and Burton, Newton, Saughall and Mollington, and Upton.

2019–present: Following a further local government ward boundary review in 2019, the boundaries are currently:

The Cheshire West and Chester wards of Central and Blacon, Chester City & the Garden Quarter, Christleton & Huntington (part), Farndon (part), Gowy Rural (part), Great Boughton, Handbridge Park, Lache, Newton & Hoole, Saughall and Mollington, and Upton.^[13]

Political History

Two-member seat (to 1885)

From 1715 to 1869, at least one of the two seats was held by a member of the Grosvenor family. For most of the nineteenth century, both MPs represented the Whigs and (later) the Liberals. The Conservatives held one of the two seats from 1859 to 1865 and 1868–1880.

Single-member seat (from 1885)

The Liberals won the single-member seat in 1885 but, apart from the landslide year of 1906 (won by the Liberals with a majority of just 47 votes), Chester returned Conservative Party MPs continuously from 1886 to 1997. At most elections, majorities were in relative terms medium but the party's MPs won marginal majorities at the 1929 general election over the Liberal candidate (when the Labour Party formed a minority government) and at the 1992 general election over the Labour candidate, when the Conservatives had a small parliamentary majority.

Christine Russell of the Labour Party gained the seat easily from Gyles Brandreth at the 1997 general election after 87 years of Conservative control, and retained it until 2010. Her majority over the Conservatives had been reduced to under 1,000 votes at the 2005 general election.^{[n 2]}

Stephen Mosley of the Conservatives gained the seat from Labour at the 2010 general election. However, Mosley narrowly lost his seat five years later to Chris Matheson of the Labour Party in 2015 by 93 votes. The 2015 general election result gave the constituency the most marginal majority (0.2%) of Labour's 232 seats won that year.^[14]

Matheson was re-elected at the 2017 general election with a significantly increased majority of 9,176 votes, one of the largest swings to Labour in the election. At 56.8%, it was the highest share of the vote that Labour has ever had in the constituency and it is no longer considered a marginal seat. At the 2019 election, Matheson was elected once again, with a reduced but still comfortable majority of 11.3%. On 21 October 2022 he resigned after allegations of sexual impropriety led him to be suspended from the House of Commons for four weeks, occasioning a by-election held on 1 December, which was won by Samantha Dixon with an increased majority for Labour.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1545 to 1660

More information Year, First member ...

Year	First member	Second member
1545	Sir Lawrence Smith^[15]
1547	Richard Sneyd	William Aldersey^[16]
1553 (Mar)	Richard Sneyd	Randall Mainwaring^[16]
1553 (Oct)	Richard Sneyd	Thomas Massey^[16]
1554 (Apr)	Richard Sneyd	William Aldersey^[16]
1554 (Nov)	Richard Sneyd	Thomas Massey^[16]
1555	William Gerard	William Aldersey^[16]
1558	Sir Lawrence Smith	William Gerard^[16]
1559 (Jan)	Sir Lawrence Smith	William Gerard^[16]
1562–1563	William Gerard	John Yerworth^[16]
1571	William Gerard	William Glasier^[16]
1572 (Apr)	William Gerard	William Glasier^[16]
1584 (Nov)	Richard Birkheved	Richard Bavand^[16]
1586 (Sep)	Richard Birkheved	Peter Warburton^[16]
1588–1589	Richard Birkheved	Peter Warburton^[16]
1593	Richard Birkheved	Gilbert Gerard^[16]
1597 (Sep)	Peter Warburton	William Brock^[16]
1601	Hugh Glasier	Thomas Gamull^[16]
1604	Thomas Lawton	Hugh Glasier
1606	Thomas Gamull	Hugh Glasier
1610	Thomas Gamull	Sir John Bingley
1614	Edward Whitby	Sir John Bingley
1621–1622	Edward Whitby	John Ratcliffe
1624	Edward Whitby	John Savage
1625	Edward Whitby	Sir John Savage
1626	Edward Whitby	William Gamull
1628–1629	Edward Whitby	John Ratcliffe
1629–1640	No Parliaments summoned
Apr 1640	Sir Thomas Smith	Robert Brerewood
Nov 1640	Sir Thomas Smith†	Francis Gamull†
1645	William Edwards	John Ratcliffe
1653	Chester not represented in Barebones Parliament
1654	Charles Walley	One seat only
1656	Edward Bradshaw	One seat only
1659	Jonathan Ridge	John Griffith

† Smith and Gamull were both disabled from serving in 1644.

MPs 1660–1880

More information Year, First member ...

	First member^[17]	First party	Second member^[17]	Second party
1660	John Ratcliffe		William Ince
1661	John Ratcliffe		Sir Thomas Smith, Bt
1673	Robert Werden	Tory	Sir Thomas Smith, Bt
1675	Robert Werden	Tory	William Williams
1679	Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bt	Tory
1681	Roger Whitley	Whig
1685	Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bt	Tory	Robert Werden	Tory
1689	Roger Whitley	Whig	George Mainwaring	Whig
1690	Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bt	Tory	Sir Richard Levinge, Bt	Tory
1695			Roger Whitley	Whig
January 1698			Thomas Cowper
July 1698			Peter Shakerley	Tory
1701	Sir Henry Bunbury, Bt	Tory	Peter Shakerley	Tory
1715	Sir Henry Bunbury, Bt	Tory	Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bt	Tory
1727	Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bt		Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bt	Tory
January 1733	Sir Thomas Grosvenor, Bt		Sir Robert Grosvenor, Bt
March 1733	Sir Charles Bunbury, Bt
1742	Philip Henry Warburton
1754	Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bt
1755	Sir Richard Grosvenor, Bt		Thomas Grosvenor
1761	Richard Wilbraham-Bootle
1790	Viscount Belgrave
1795	Viscount Belgrave		Thomas Grosvenor	Whig^[18]
1802	Richard Erle-Drax-Grosvenor
1807	John Grey Egerton
1818	Viscount Belgrave	Whig^[18]
1826	Viscount Belgrave	Whig^[18]	Lord Robert Grosvenor	Whig^[18]^[19]
1830	Sir Philip Grey Egerton, Bt	Tory^[18]
1831	Foster Cunliffe-Offley	Whig^[18]
May 1832	John Finchett Maddock	Whig^[18]
December 1832	Sir John Jervis	Radical^[20]^[21]^[19]
1847	Sir John Jervis	Radical^[20]^[21]^[19]	Earl Grosvenor	Whig^[22]^[23]^[24]
1850	William Owen Stanley	Whig^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]
1857	Enoch Salisbury	Radical^[24]^[29]
1859	Philip Stapleton Humberston	Conservative		Liberal
1865	William Henry Gladstone	Liberal
1868	Henry Cecil Raikes	Conservative
1869			Hon. Norman Grosvenor	Liberal
1874			John George Dodson	Liberal
1880	Beilby Lawley	Liberal	John George Dodson	Liberal
1880	Writ suspended

MPs since 1885

More information Election, Member ...

	Member^[30]^[17]	Party
1885	Walter Foster	Liberal
1886	Robert Yerburgh	Conservative
1906	Alfred Mond	Liberal
1910	Robert Yerburgh	Conservative
1916 by-election	Sir Owen Philipps	Unionist
1922	Sir Charles Cayzer	Unionist
1940 by-election	Sir Basil Nield	Conservative
1956 by-election	John Temple	Conservative
1974	Peter Morrison	Conservative
1992	Gyles Brandreth	Conservative
1997	Christine Russell	Labour
2010	Stephen Mosley	Conservative
2015	Chris Matheson	Labour
2022 by-election	Samantha Dixon	Labour