Talk:Redistribution of Seats Act 1885

Glasgow

Great article. I've made a small change to reflect that Glasgow had three MPs prior to the 1885 Act, not two as previously stated. It was given a third MP during the reforms of 1867-68. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.235.8.61 (talk) 09:38, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

Lincolnshire section

Surely Lincolnshire Mid and Lincolnshire North are the wrong way round? Crooked cottage (talk) 16:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Why? They were both abolished in 1885, and are listed alphabetically. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:40, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Note where I come from. Brigg and Gainsborough are in Northern Lincolnshire, Horncastle and Louth in Mid Lincolnshire Crooked cottage (talk) 17:26, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Per the general principle of comment-on-contributions-not-contributors, I don't usually check where users come from. In any case, since we use reliable sources for these things, it's not really relevant. I'm sure you are very conscientious, but you don't fit the definition of a reliable source.

The new constituencies were county divisions, so the location of the towns doesn't give us a precise indication of whether the new divisions straddled any of the previous boundaries. Given that Lincolnshire was divided administratively into the three Parts of Kesteven, Holland and Lindsey, it sees quite possible that both the old and new divisions reflected the boundaries of the Parts ... but we'd need sources.

The returns in the London Gazette usually indicate the nature of divisions quite clearly, so a search of the gazette might give some useful results. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:38, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

OK, will follow this up, possibly next week in Colindale. I'm sure it's wrong, but you're right, it needs a reference. With that reference, I would have simply edited and quoted the reference. Crooked cottage (talk) 00:05, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi CC and welcome. When the table was created, the only information available was that there were three Lincolnshire constituencies before, and six after, without it being clear whether the old ones were each divided exactly into two new ones or whether they were all thrown into the melting pot. The table as it stands is not actually wrong because the before and after constituencies are grouped in the one row box and the the alignment between old and new is not significant. If you can establish that each old constituency was split exactly into two new ones and align the new constituencies accordingly that would be most useful. But you must then split the row box into three separate boxes. Some other helpful contributors have done this for other counties by comparing the constituent wards in Debretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1881 and Debretts House of Commons and the Judicial Bench 1886. No need to go and see Colin - it is all there if you click on the link scroll through the books. All the best Motmit (talk) 16:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion of using Debrett's, but I'm afraid that the information there is not thorough (at least in the small sample I looked at). There was detail for borough constituencies such as Grimsby and Lincoln, but not for the county constituencies (Brigg, Horncastle, etc.). I looked at http://www.londonancestor.com/maps/bc-lincoln-co-n-th.htm and a number of pages on http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/lin.htm. This suggests that all of the relevant information will be in Report of the Boundary Commissioners for England and Wales, printed by Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1885. Given the price of this on the market is somewhat expensive, I intend to make a trip to the Bod at some time.Crooked cottage (talk) 12:00, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

That makes sense - it's alphatetical, which is what threw me. Will have a look when I've some time. Crooked cottage (talk) 19:05, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Macclesfield

Another small slip: the borough of Macclesfield, disfranchised for corruption, formerly had two MPs, not one as stated, I've amended it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.235.8.61 (talk) 08:47, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Weird errors

The bit about Disraeli makes no sense - he'd been dead for several years. Also, the division of boroughs was tacitly understood to separate working class and middle class areas for party advantage, but the actual section ("recognition of middle and working classes") about this is about something else entirely. Mk270 (talk) 14:23, 20 April 2021 (UTC)