From 1950 until 1955 the seat was divided into east and west, represented by Conservatives Herbert Williams andRichard Thompson respectively.
Croydon South had twice seen Croydon's only Labour MPs before the 1990s.David Rees-Williams held the seat from the1945 Labour landslide until unfavourable boundary changes in 1950.David Winnick won the seat in 1966 before losing in 1970. Otherwise the seat, and indeed the rest of Croydon, had always been firm Conservative territory.
In 1974 a fresh seat of Croydon South was created to the south predominantly from the northwestern part ofEast Surrey, coveringPurley andCoulsdon, which had become parts ofGreater London in 1965, rather than from the historic Croydon South.
Since its recreation, the constituency has been represented by three Conservative MPs.Sir William Clark, who had represented East Surrey since1970, won the new seat inFebruary 1974, and held it until his retirement in1992. His successor, SirRichard Ottaway, then held the seat until2015, when he stood down and was succeeded byChris Philp.[2][3] Boundary changes have been minor and the 2015 result made the seat the 145th safest of the Conservative Party's 331 seats by percentage of majority.[4] At the 2015 general election, it was one of the Conservatives' safest seats in Greater London.[5] Philp held the seat at the 2024 general election on a substantially reduced majority of just over 2,000, the lowest majority since the seat was created.
Croydon South consists of affluentsuburbia, including a significant minority of large houses with gardens on theNorth Downs escarpment. It has many well-to-do commuters taking advantage of the fast trains to the City andGatwick Airport, plus a significant proportion of retired people. Included are the suburbs ofPurley andKenley, home to theKenley Aerodrome
The village-likeSelsdon – one of the few places in the seat where transport links are poor – has a place on the political map having spawned the phrase 'Selsdon Man',[citation needed] itsswing and voters first seen as an idealbellwether for the national swing by theConservative Party. The Purley Way, which runs mainly through Waddon, has become home to large retail estates for out-of-town shopping and leisure. Prior to 2018 Waddon was the sole Labour ward in the constituency – one of its councillors,Andrew Pelling, the former Conservative MP forCroydon Central, defected to the Labour Party.
Boundary changes before the 2024 election removed both Selsdon and Waddon from the seat and added the Park Hill & Whitgift ward, close to Croydon Town centre.
At the southern end of the constituency,Coulsdon has much in common with the residual county ofSurrey of which it was a more intrinsically associated part until 1965 as it was excluded fromCroydon County Borough on the county borough's creation in 1889.
Addington, Broad Green, Central, Shirley, South, and Waddon.
In 1965, local government inGreater London was re-organised. This constituency was contained entirely within the newLondon Borough of Croydon from 1965, but new Constituency Boundaries would not take effect until1974.
^abcdReturn of the Expenses of each candidate at the general election of May, 1979, in the United Kingdom (HC 374).Parliament of the United Kingdom. p. 11.
