Croydon East (UK Parliament constituency)

Croydon East
Former Borough constituency
for the House of Commons
County	Surrey
1950 (1950)–1955 (1955)
Number of members	One
Replaced by	Croydon North East and Croydon South
Created from	Croydon North and Croydon South

Croydon East was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.

Politics and history

Croydon East was a short-lived seat created for the 1950 general election, in an effort to create three seats in the County Borough of Croydon from the previous two, also taking in areas from the East Surrey constituency to the south. The new Croydon East took in areas of the former Croydon North and Croydon South constituencies as well as Surrey East. It bordered Croydon West, Croydon North and Surrey East, as well as, when originally created, the constituency of Beckenham.

All three Croydon constituencies were abolished just five years later at the 1955 general election, re-creating Croydon South and creating the new Croydon North East and Croydon North West seats.

For all of its short history, Croydon East had Conservative Members of Parliament. It actually saw three elections: the 1950 general election, the 1951 general election and a 1954 by-election. Prior to 1950, Croydon South had been held by Labour but most of its voters were re-drawn into Croydon West.

Boundaries

Croydon East covered the communities of South Norwood, Addiscombe, Woodside, Shirley and Addington.

Members of Parliament 1950 - 1955

Election		Member	Party
	1950	Sir Herbert Williams	Conservative
	1954 by-election	John Hughes-Hallett	Conservative
	1955	constituency abolished

Election results

General Election 1950: Croydon East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Sir Herbert Williams	29,484	53.3	N/A
	Labour	Marian Billson	20,903	37.8	N/A
	Liberal	G.L Gray	4,882	8.8	N/A
Majority			8,581	15.5	N/A
Turnout			55,269		N/A
	Conservative hold		Swing	N/A

General Election 1951: Croydon East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Sir Herbert Williams	32,282	58.8	+5.5
	Labour	Alexander Bain	22,615	41.2	+3.4
Majority			9,667	17.6
Turnout			54,897
	Conservative hold		Swing	+1.1

By-election 1954: Croydon East
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	John Hughes-Hallett	21,640	56.6
	Labour	B Parkin	13,546	35.4
	Liberal	W E Waters	3,060	8.0
Majority			8,094	21.2
Turnout			38,460	67.5
	Conservative hold		Swing

References

• The Times House of Commons 1950. The Times. 1950. 
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 6)