East Dorset (UK Parliament constituency)

East Dorset
Former County constituency for the House of Commons
1885–1950
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Poole

East Dorset is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was formally known as the Eastern Division of Dorset. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was represented by one Knight of the Shire.

Boundaries

Between 1832 and 1885 the historic county of Dorset, in south western England, was an undivided three member county constituency - see the article on the Dorset constituency. In 1885 the county was divided for Parliamentary purposes between this constituency, North Dorset, South Dorset and West Dorset (there were no borough constituencies in Dorset in the redistribution of 1885). Each of these divisions comprised roughly a quarter of the area of the county and returned one member of Parliament. This constituency consisted of the Sessional Division of Wimborne, part of the Sessional Division of Wareham, and the Municipal Borough of the Town and County of Poole.

In 1918 the four Dorset divisions were retained, but the boundaries were altered. This constituency was reduced in area to about half its former size, with the northern part of the old East division being transferred to North Dorset and the southern section to South Dorset. The then local authorities comprising East Dorset in 1918 were the Municipal Borough of Poole, the Urban District of Wimborne Minster, the Rural District of Poole and part of the Rural District of Wimborne and Cranborne.

In the redistribution which took effect in the United Kingdom general election, 1950 the East county division was abolished. A new borough constituency of Poole was created. Wimborne Minster and the part of the Rural District of Wimborne and Cranborne previously in the abolished constituency, were transferred to North Dorset.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party	Notes
	1885	Pascoe Glyn	Liberal	Younger son of Lord Wolverton
	1886	George Hawkesworth Bond	Conservative	Died in 1891
	1891 by-election	Hon. Humphrey Napier Sturt	Conservative	Succeeded as 2nd Baron Alington in 1904
	1904 by-election	Charles Henry Lyell	Liberal	MP for Edinburgh South from April 1910
	January 1910	Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	Liberal	Unseated on petition in May 1910
	June 1910	Hon. Christian Henry Charles Guest	Liberal	MP for Pembroke & Haverfordwest from Dec 1910
	December 1910	Rt Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	Liberal	Liberal Chief Whip 1917–1921, Secretary of State for Air 1921–1922
	1918		Coalition Liberal
	1922	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	Independent Conservative	Took Conservative Whip January 1923
	1923		Conservative
	1929	Alec Ewart Glassey	Liberal
	1931	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	Conservative
	1945	Mervyn James Wheatley	Conservative
	1950	constituency abolished

Elections

Elections in the 1900s

A.A. Allen

General Election January 1900

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Hon. Humphrey Napier Sturt	4,776	50.5	n/a
	Liberal	Arthur Acland Allen	4,680	49.5	n/a
Turnout				81.4	n/a
Majority			96	1.0	n/a
	Conservative hold		Swing	n/a

East Dorset by-election, 1904

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Charles Henry Lyell	5,929	53.7	+4.2
	Conservative	Charles E. Van Raalte	5,109	46.3	-4.2
Turnout				87.0	+5.6
Majority			820	7.4	8.4
	Liberal gain from Conservative		Swing	+4.2

General Election January 1906

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Charles Henry Lyell	6,104	50.1	-3.6
	Conservative	Charles E. Van Raalte	6,083	49.9	+3.6
Turnout				89.9	+2.9
Majority			21	0.2	6.2
	Liberal hold		Swing	-3.6

Elections in the 1910s

Frederick Guest

General Election January 1910

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	6,957	51.6	+1.5
	Conservative	John Sanctuary Nicholson	6,531	48.4	-1.5
Majority			426	3.2	+3.0
Turnout				91.2	+1.3
	Liberal hold		Swing	+1.5

Henry Guest

East Dorset by-election, 1910

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Christian Henry Charles Guest	6,967	52.2	+0.6
	Conservative	John Sanctuary Nicholson	6,375	47.8	-0.6
Majority			592	4.4	+1.2
Turnout				90.2	-1.0
	Liberal hold		Swing	+0.6

General Election December 1910

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	6,819	52.1	-0.1
	Conservative	Maurice George Carr Glyn	6,266	47.9	+0.1
Majority				4.2	-0.2
Turnout				88.4	-1.8
	Liberal hold		Swing

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 from 1914 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;

• Liberal: Frederick Guest
• Unionist:

General Election 1918

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	11,944
	Labour	Alfred Smith	4,321
Majority
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

• endorsed by the Coalition Government

Elections in the 1920s

General Election 1922

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Independent Unionist	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	12,513	49.1
	Labour	Rev. Frederick Jesse Hopkins	6,914	27.1
	National Liberal	Rt Hon. Frederick Edward Guest	6,062	23.8
Majority			5,599	22.0
Turnout				80.2
	Independent Unionist gain from National Liberal		Swing

General Election 1923: East Dorset

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	12,480	48.5	-0.6
	Liberal	Richard Evan Williams Kirby	7,535	29.2	+2.1
	Labour	Rev. Frederick Jesse Hopkins	5,760	22.3	-1.5
Majority			4,945	19.3	-2.7
Turnout				78.5	-1.7
	Unionist hold		Swing	-1.4

General Election 1924

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	14,479	52.6	+4.1
	Liberal	Alec Ewart Glassey	8,828	32.1	+2.9
	Labour	Edward Joseph Stocker	4,205	15.3	-7.0
Majority			5,651	20.5
Turnout				80.3	+1.8
	Unionist hold		Swing	+0.6

General Election 1929: East Dorset

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Alec Ewart Glassey	17,810	42.2	+10.1
	Unionist	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	17,533	41.6	-11.0
	Labour	Edward Joseph Stocker	6,819	16.2	+0.9
Majority			277	0.6	21.1
Turnout				81.5	+1.2
	Liberal gain from Unionist		Swing	+10.5

Elections in the 1930s

General Election 1931

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	20,711	44.5
	Liberal	Alec Ewart Glassey	18,801	40.4
	Labour	Edward Joseph Stocker	7,009	15.1
Majority			1,910	4.1
Turnout			46,521	82.6
	Conservative gain from Liberal		Swing

General Election 1935

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Gordon Ralph Hall Caine	25,520	53.5
	Liberal	Frank Walter Raffety	11,349	23.8
	Labour	Edward Joseph Stocker	10,823	22.7
Majority			14,171	29.7
Turnout			47,692	74.4
	Conservative hold		Swing

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: Mervyn James Wheatley
• Liberal: David Graham Hutton
• Labour: Hugh Ross Williamson

General Election 1945

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Lt-Col. Mervyn James Wheatley	26,561	43.8
	Labour	Lt-Com. Charles Fletcher Fletcher-Cooke	25,093	41.4
	Liberal	Lt-Col. John AH Mander	8,975	14.8
Majority			1,468	2.4
Turnout				75.0
	Conservative hold		Swing

See also

• List of former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituencies

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)
• Boundaries of Parliamentary Constituencies 1885-1972, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Reference Publications 1972)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1832-1885, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1977)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1974)
• British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press, revised edition 1977)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume II 1886-1918, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1978)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume III 1919-1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1979)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume IV 1945-1979, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1981)