Elland was a parliamentary constituency in the West Riding of Yorkshire that existed between 1885 and 1950. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, by the first-past-the-post voting system.
Situated between Bradford in the North, Halifax in the West, and Huddersfield to the south, it included the mining town of Brighouse and the wool centre of Elland. With a sizeable Nonconformist population (estimated at 15 per cent in 1922), it was natural Liberal territory, and was a fairly safe Liberal and later Labour seat, falling to the Conservatives only in the 'khaki election' of 1918 and the Labour collapse of 1931. In the 1918 redistribution it lost some territory and it was abolished in 1950. A sizeable part of the area was transferred to the new Brighouse and Spenborough seat.
Boundaries 1885–1918:
1918–1950: The Municipal Borough of Brighouse, the Urban Districts of Clayton, Elland, Greetland, Hipperholme, Queensberry, Shelf, Southowram, and Stainland, and the Rural District of Halifax except the parish of Norland.
Members of Parliament ElectionMemberParty 1885 Thomas Wayman Liberal 1899 by-election Charles Trevelyan Liberal 1918 George Taylor Ramsden Unionist 1922 William C. Robinson Labour 1923 Sir Robert Kay Liberal 1924 William C. Robinson Labour 1929 Charles Buxton Labour 1931 Thomas Levy Conservative 1945 Frederick Cobb Labour1950 constituency abolished
Elections Elections in the 1880s
Elections in the 1890s
Elections in the 1900s
Elections in the 1910s
General Election 1914–15:
Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected; Liberal: Charles Trevelyan Unionist: George Taylor Ramsden
Elections in the 1920s
Elections in the 1930s
Elections in the 1940s 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 from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected:
Conservative: Thomas Levy Labour: Gilbert Mitchison
See also Elland, a market town in England Ellands, a surname
References
Michael Kinnear, The British Voter: An Atlas and Survey Since 1885 (London: Batsford Academic and Educational Ltd., 1981, 2nd ed.)