Frome (UK Parliament constituency)

Former County constituency for the House of Commons
County	Somerset
Major settlements	Frome
1885–1950
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Somerset North and Wells
1832–1885
Number of members	One
Type of constituency	Borough constituency

Frome was a constituency centred on the town of Frome in Somerset. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832, until it was abolished for the 1950 general election. Between 1832 and 1885, it was a parliamentary borough; after 1885 it was a county constituency, a division of Somerset.

History

Frome was one of the boroughs created by the Great Reform Act of 1832, as the town was at that point one of the bigger towns in England which was not already represented, and its then-flourishing woollen manufacturing industry made it seem likely to grow further. The new borough consisted only of the town of Frome, and had a population (according to the 1831 census) of approximately 11,240. The registered electorate at the 1832 election was 322. Frome was near to Longleat, and the Marquess of Bath was influential in election outcomes throughout its life as a borough.

However, the town did not increase dramatically in size in the next few years, and the electorate was still only just over 400 by 1865, although the extension of the franchise at the 1868 election trebled this. By the time of the Third Reform Act, Frome was too small to continue as a constituency in itself and the borough was abolished with effect from the 1885 election.

The new county division into which the town was placed consisted of the whole north-eastern corner of Somerset, except for Bath, and was named after the town, as The Frome Division of Somerset. Nevertheless, Frome contributed only a minority of the voters in the constituency, which also included Weston, Radstock, Bathampton and Batheaston, to say nothing of the freeholders of Bath, who voted in this division under the arrangements that gave property owners in boroughs a vote in the adjoining county constituency; by the time of the First World War, the population was around 60,000. This constituency was a mixed one, with suburban voters at Weston and in the Bath suburbs, agricultural villages between Bath and Frome, growing mining interests round Radstock and some industry at Twerton. This made the constituency marginal between the Conservatives and Liberals, and the victor's majority was rarely more than a few hundred votes.

There were further boundary changes in 1918, when the number of constituencies in Somerset was reduced from nine to seven. Frome's boundaries were extended westwards to the fringes of Bristol, bringing in Midsomer Norton and the areas round Clutton, Chew Magna and Keynsham (previously in the Northern division): the revised constituency consisted of the urban districts of Frome, Midsomer Norton and Radstock, the Bath, Clutton and Keynsham rural districts and all but six parishes of Frome Rural District. This, too, was a marginal constituency, and except in 1923 was always won at general elections by the party which was successful nationally.

The Frome constituency was abolished in the boundary changes which came into effect at the 1950 election, Frome itself being transferred to the Wells division but most of the remainder of the constituency forming the bulk of the new Somerset North.

Members of Parliament

Frome parliamentary borough

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	1832	Thomas Sheppard	Whig
	1835		Conservative
	1847	Hon. Robert Boyle	Whig	4th son of Edmund Boyle, 8th Earl of Cork
	1854 by-election	Richard Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan	Whig	later 9th Earl of Cork
	1856 by-election	Hon. William Boyle	Whig	younger brother of Richard Boyle, Viscount Dungarvan
	1857	Donald Nicoll	Whig
	1859	Lord Edward Thynne	Conservative	previously MP for Weobley 1826–32
	1865	Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, Bt.	Liberal	noted orientalist, previously MP for Reigate
	1868	Thomas Hughes	Liberal	author of Tom Brown's Schooldays
	1874	Henry Charles Lopes	Conservative	previously MP for Launceston, later a Lord Justice of Appeal
	1876 by-election	Henry Bernhard Samuelson	Liberal	previously MP for Cheltenham
	1885	parliamentary borough constituency abolished, name transferred to a new county division

Frome division of Somerset

Election		Member	Party
	1885	Lawrence James Baker	Liberal
	1886	Viscount Weymouth	Conservative
	1892	John Barlow	Liberal
	1895	Viscount Weymouth	Conservative
	1896 by-election	Sir John Barlow, 1st Baronet	Liberal
	1918	Percy Angier Hurd	Coalition Conservative
	1922		Conservative
	1923	Frederick Gould	Labour
	1924	Geoffrey Kelsall Peto	Conservative
	1929	Frederick Gould	Labour
	1931	Henry Thynne, Viscount Weymouth	Conservative
	1935	Mavis Tate	Conservative
	1945	Walter Farthing	Labour
	1950	constituency abolished

Elections in the 1900s

John Barlow

General Election 1900

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	John Emmott Barlow	5,066
	Conservative	Ellis William Hume-Williams	4,708
Majority			358
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

General Election 1906

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	John Emmott Barlow	6,297
	Conservative	Charles Talbot Foxcroft	4,552
Majority			1,745
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

Elections in the 1910s

General Election January 1910

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sir John Emmott Barlow	6,248	53.3
	Conservative	Charles Talbot Foxcroft	5,489	46.7
Majority			779	6.6
Turnout				89.0	+3.0
	Liberal hold		Swing

General Election December 1910

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sir John Emmott Barlow	5,944	52.6
	Conservative	Charles Talbot Foxcroft	5,366	47.4
Majority			578	5.2
Turnout				85.9
	Liberal hold		Swing

General Election December 1918

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Percy Angier Hurd	11,118	46.6
	Labour	Capt. Edward Gill	10,454	43.9
	Liberal	Sir John Emmott Barlow	2,004	8.4
	National Party	Lt-Col. Thomas Malcolm Harvey Kincaid-Smith	258	1.1
Majority			664	2.7
Turnout				67.7
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing

• recipient of the Coalition Government Coupon

Elections in the 1920s

General Election 1923: Frome

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Frederick Gould	15,902	54.4	+6.6
	Unionist	Percy Angier Hurd	13,306	45.6	-6.6
Majority			2,596	8.8	+13.2
Turnout				79.7	-2.5
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing	+6.6

General Election 1929: Frome

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Frederick Gould	18,524	45.5
	Unionist	Geoffrey Kelsall Peto	16,378	40.3
	Liberal	Colin Stratton-Hallett	5,774	14.2
Majority			2,146	5.2
Turnout
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1939/40: Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by the Autumn of 1939, the following candidates had been selected;

• Conservative: Guy Dalrymple Fanshawe
• Labour: Kim Mackay
• British Union: Charles Hewitt

References

• The Constitutional Year Book for 1913 (London: National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations, 1913)
• F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885 (2nd edition, Aldershot: Parliamentary Research Services, 1989)
• F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949 (Glasgow: Political Reference Publications, 1969)
• Henry Pelling, Social Geography of British Elections 1885-1910 (London: Macmillan, 1967)
• J. Holladay Philbin, Parliamentary Representation 1832 - England and Wales (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)
• Frederic A Youngs, jr, Guide to the Local Administrative Units of England, Vol I (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979)

• British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, FWS Craig