The 1950 to 1997 single-member constituency was held by theLabour Party from its creation in 1950 until1979 and then held by theConservative Party until its abolition.
Context: 1832-1868. Extract from 1837 result: the western, striped areas straddling the Severn estuary.
1832–1885: The Hundreds of Berkeley, Thornbury, Langley and Swineshead, Grumbald's Ash, Pucklechurch, Lancaster Duchy, Botloe, St Briavel's, Westbury, and Bledisloe, and the parts of the Hundreds of Henbury and Barton Regis that are not included in the limits of the City of Bristol.[2]
The place of election was the small town ofDursley. This was where thehustings were put up and electors voted (by spoken declaration in public, before thesecret ballot was introduced in 1872).
The county's five parliamentary boroughs were all inEast Gloucestershire. Qualified freeholders from those boroughs could vote in the eastern county division.Bristol was a "county of itself", so its freeholders qualified to vote in the borough, not in a county division.
There were no electors qualified to vote in the western division, because they were freehold owners of land in a parliamentary borough.
1950–1983: The Rural Districts of East Dean, Lydney, Newent, and West Dean, and part of the Rural District of Gloucester.
1983–1997: The District of Forest of Dean, and the Borough of Tewkesbury wards of Brockworth Glebe, Brockworth Moorfield, Brockworth Westfield, Churchdown Brookfield, Churchdown Parton, Churchdown Pirton, De Winton, Haw Bridge, Highnam, Horsbere, and Innsworth.
The constituency in this period was a smaller part of the county of Gloucestershire than its nineteenth century namesake. It was centred on theForest of Dean, and indeed the majority of the constituency at abolition formed the newForest of Dean constituency. About a fifth of the constituency moved toTewkesbury, with 735 constituents moving toGloucester.[3]
^Craig, F. W. S., ed. (1972).Boundaries of parliamentary constituencies 1985-1972. Chichester, Sussex: Political Reference Publications.ISBN0-900178-09-4.
^Percentage change and swing for February 1974 is calculated relative to the BBC notional 1970 constituency result, not actual 1970 result. Notional 1970 results were rounded to the nearest hundred.Constituency data for 1974-83 including 1970 notionals, retrieved18 July 2017
British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885, compiled and edited by F. W. S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1977)
The Parliaments of England by Henry Stooks Smith (1st edition published in three volumes 1844–50), second edition edited (in one volume) by F. W. S. Craig (Political Reference Publications 1973))
Who's Who of British Members of Parliament: Volume I 1832-1885, edited by M. Stenton (The Harvester Press 1976)
