| Smethwick | |
| Parliament: | uk |
| Year: | 2024 |
| Type: | Borough |
| Elects Howmany: | One |
| Previous: | Warley |
| Year2: | 1918 |
| Abolished2: | 1974 |
| Elects Howmany2: | One |
| Previous2: | Handsworth |
| Next2: | Warley East |
| Region: | England |
| County: | West Midlands |
| Towns: | Smethwick, Brandhall, Langley Green, Blackheath |
| Mp: | Gurinder Josan |
| Party: | Labour |
| Electorate: | 71,195 (2023)[1] |
Smethwick is a parliamentary constituency, centred on the town of Smethwick in Staffordshire. It returns one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system. The constituency was created for the 1918 general election, abolished for the February 1974 general election, and re-established for the 2024 general election. It is formed from the abolished Warley constituency, with the addition of most of the Blackheath ward.[2]
The County Borough of Smethwick.
The established constituency is composed of the following wards (as they existed on 1 December 2020):
It comprises the whole of the current Warley constituency, with the addition of the bulk of the Blackheath ward from Halesowen and Rowley Regis, thus bringing its electorate within the permitted range.
The constituency gained national interest during the 1918 general election when the Suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst decided to stand as a Woman's Party candidate supporting the Coalition. She was one of 17 women candidates standing for Parliament at the first opportunity. This was her one and only parliamentary campaign which she lost to the Labour candidate.[4]
In 1945 the constituency held the first post-war by-election when the winning Labour candidate, Alfred Dobbs, was killed in a road traffic accident less than twenty four hours after the count.[5] The constituency was the subject of national media coverage during the 1964 general election when Peter Griffiths, the Conservative Party candidate, gained the seat against the national trend, unseating the Labour Party sitting member, Patrick Gordon Walker, a front bench opposition spokesman in the previous Parliament, in a campaign with racial overtones.[6]
| Election | Member | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1918 | John Davison | Labour | |
| 1926 | Sir Oswald Mosley | Labour | |
| 1931 | New Party | ||
| 1931 | Roy Wise | Conservative | |
| 1945 | Alfred Dobbs | Labour | |
| 1945 | Patrick Gordon Walker | Labour | |
| 1964 | Peter Griffiths | Conservative | |
| 1966 | Andrew Faulds | Labour | |
| Feb 1974 | constituency abolished: see Warley East | ||
Warley prior to 2024
See main article: Smethwick in the 1964 general election.