Manchester Rusholme (UK Parliament constituency)

Manchester Rusholme was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Rusholme district of Manchester. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

Manchester Rusholme
Former Borough constituency for the House of Commons
1918–1950
Number of members	one
Replaced by	Manchester Ardwick, Manchester Gorton and Manchester Withington
Created from	Manchester South and Stretford

History

The constituency was created by the Representation of the People Act for the 1918 general election, and abolished for the 1950 general election.

Boundaries

The constituency was created as Manchester, Rusholme Division by the Representation of the People Act 1918, and was defined as consisting of three wards of the county borough of Manchester, namely Levenshulme, Longsight and Rusholme.[1]

The division consisted of areas that had been included with Manchester's municipal boundaries in 1890 and 1909.[2] Since the previous redistribution of seats in 1885, they had formed part of the Stretford Division of Lancashire.

The seat was abolished by the Representation of the People Act 1948, with its area being redistributed between Manchester Ardwick (Longsight), Manchester Gorton (Levenshulme) and Manchester Withington (Rusholme) borough constituencies.[3]

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1918	Robert Burdon Stoker	Coalition Conservative
	1919	John Henry Thorpe	Coalition Conservative
	1923	Charles Masterman	Liberal
	1924	Sir Boyd Merriman	Conservative
	1933	Edmund Ashworth Radford	Conservative
	1944	Frederick Cundiff	Conservative
	1945	Lester Hutchinson	Labour
	1949		Labour Independent Group
1950		constituency abolished

Election results

Election in the 1910s

General election 1918: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
C	Unionist	Robert Burdon Stoker	12,447	65.1	N/A
	Liberal	Walter Butterworth	3,699	19.3	N/A
	Labour	Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence	2,985	15.6	N/A
Majority			8,748	45.8	N/A
Turnout			19,131	62.9	N/A
Registered electors			30,421
	Unionist win (new seat)
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

William Pringle

1919 Manchester Rusholme by-election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
C	Unionist	John Henry Thorpe	9,394	45.7	−19.4
	Labour	Robert Dunstan	6,412	31.2	+15.6
	Liberal	William Pringle	3,923	19.1	−0.2
	National	Roger Bowan Crewdson	815	4.0	N/A
Majority			2,982	14.5	−31.3
Turnout			19,729	67.5	+4.6
Registered electors			30,421
	Unionist hold		Swing	+17.5
C indicates candidate endorsed by the coalition government.

Election in the 1920s

General election 1922: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	John Henry Thorpe	11,765	47.9	−17.2
	Liberal	Ernest Frederick Martin Sutton	6,421	26.1	+6.8
	Labour	Albert E. Wood	6,397	26.0	+10.4
Majority			5,344	21.8	−24.0
Turnout			25,583	77.8	+14.9
Registered electors			31,582
	Unionist hold		Swing	−12.0

CFG Masterman

General election 1923: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Charles Masterman	10,901	43.4	+17.3
	Unionist	John Henry Thorpe	8,876	35.3	−12.6
	Labour	William Paul	5,366	21.3	−4.7
Majority			2,025	8.1	N/A
Turnout			25,143	78.0	+0.2
Registered electors			32,253
	Liberal gain from Unionist		Swing	+15.0

General election 1924: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Boyd Merriman	13,341	50.4	+15.1
	Liberal	Charles Masterman	7,772	29.4	−14.0
	Communist	William Paul	5,328	20.2	N/A
Majority			5,569	21.0	N/A
Turnout			26,441	79.8	+1.8
Registered electors			33,147
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing	+14.6

General election 1929: Manchester Rusholme [4]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Boyd Merriman	14,230	42.8	−7.6
	Liberal	Philip Guedalla	10,958	32.9	+3.5
	Labour	Jerrold Adshead	8,080	24.3	N/A
Majority			3,272	9.9	−11.1
Turnout			33,268	78.7	−1.1
Registered electors			42,289
	Unionist hold		Swing	−5.6

Election in the 1930s

General election 1931: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Boyd Merriman	24,817	69.3
	Labour	Jerrold Adshead	6,319	17.6
	Liberal	Frank Thornborough	4,658	13.0
Majority			18,498	51.7
Turnout			35,794	80.0
	Conservative hold		Swing

1933 Manchester Rusholme by-election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Edmund Ashworth Radford	13,904	50.8
	Labour	George Woods	11,005	40.1
	Independent Liberal	Percy McDougall	2,503	9.1
Majority			2,899	10.7
Turnout				60.8
	Conservative hold		Swing

General election 1935: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Edmund Ashworth Radford	19,678	62.6
	Labour	Albert Knight	9,258	29.4
	Independent Liberal	Percy McDougall	2,525	8.0
Majority			10,420	33.2
Turnout				69.8
	Conservative hold		Swing

Election in the 1940s

General Election 1940 Another election was due to take place by 1940 but did not take place due to the outbreak of war. The following candidates had already been selected to fight this election:

• Conservative: Edmund Ashworth Radford
• Labour: Lester Hutchinson
• Liberal: Hilda Buckmaster [5]

1944 Manchester Rusholme by-election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Conservative	Frederick Cundiff	8,430	53.3
	Common Wealth	Harold William Blomerley	6,670	42.1
	Independent Labour	C.J. Taylor	734	4.6
Majority			1,760	11.2
Turnout				34.7

General election 1945: Manchester Rusholme

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Lester Hutchinson	15,408	43.4
	Conservative	Frederick Cundiff	15,398	43.4
	Liberal	George Chappell	4,673	13.2
Majority			10	0.0
Turnout			47,486	74.7

References

1. Ninth Schedule, Part I: Parliamentary Boroughs, 1918 c.64 sch.9
2. F A Youngs Jr., Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol.II: Northern England, London, 1991
3. First Schedule: Parliamentary Constituencies, 1948 c.65 sch.1
4. British parliamentary election results, 1918-1949 by FWS Craig
5. The Liberal Magazine 1939

• Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "R" (part 2)