Paddington South was a Parliamentary constituency in London which returned one Member of Parliament. It was a compact urban area, but predominantly wealthy, and was most famously represented by Lord Randolph Churchill during the latter part of his career.
Boundaries
The constituency was originally made up of the southern part of Paddington Parish. In the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 it was defined as including the No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 wards of the Parish. This comprised an area bounded by Bayswater Road and Kensington Gardens on the south, Chepstow Place and Ledbury Road on the west, Harrow Road, Westbourne Terrace and Praed Street on the north, and Edgware Road on the east.
In 1918 there were boundary changes which moved the northern boundary further north to the Grand Union canal from the Harrow Road to Little Venice, then back on to the Harrow Road between Little Venice and Edgware Road. At this point, the constituency was defined as the following wards of the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington: Hyde Park, Lancaster Gate East, Lancaster Gate West, Westbourne, and the part of the Church ward south of a line on the southern side of the Grand Junction Canal to the Harrow Road Bridge, and thence along the middle of the Harrow Road.
In 1950 there was no change in the boundary but the definition was changed to take account of ward boundary changes which had taken place in 1919. The constituency was defined as the Church, Hyde Park, Lancaster Gate East, Lancaster Gate West and Westbourne wards of the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington. No changes were made in 1955, but due to a falling electorate, the Boundary Commission recommended that Paddington North and Paddington South be merged into a single Paddington constituency in a report issued in 1969. This change took effect at the February 1974 general election.
Constituency profile Although the boundaries were slightly changed during its history, the principal areas of the constituency remained the same. In the east, the Hyde Park Estate had been built on land owned originally by the Bishop of London and later by the Church Commissioners in the 1820s starting with Connaught Square; it was originally known as Tyburnia after the River Tyburn. This area was always a prosperous one and no longer had the problem of the Tyburn gallows which were removed in 1783. However, the early 20th century saw some of the houses divided into flats and a wholescale redevelopment was undertaken under the Church Commissioners in the 1950s.
West of this estate, on the north side of Kensington Gardens, is Lancaster Gate, built in 1856 but with many later buildings including those to replace bomb damage. The Barrie Estate, built by the London County Council in the 1950s, was one of the few social housing blocks to be built near the park. In later years, many of the terraces were replaced with or converted to hotels. Further west and beyond Queensway came apartment blocks such as Orme Court. North of this area the stuccoed terraces were built in the mid-19th century to provide good quality accommodation although not of the very highest class.
On Queensway, Whiteleys Department Store had been founded in 1863 and steadily expanded, having a major rebuilding in 1908–12. Between this area and Westbourne Terrace was an area redeveloped as the Hallfield Estate after 1947 by Paddington Borough Council using Denys Lasdun as architect. To the west was Westbourne Grove which developed as a shopping street in the 1860s and leading to Notting Hill. Between Westbourne Grove and the railway line which led to Paddington railway station were smaller houses and garden squares. Although originally developed as a residential area of some quality, this area swiftly declined.
In the very last years of the constituency, disused railway sidings north of Westbourne Park Road were developed by Westminster City Council as the high-density Brunel Estate. North of the railway line, and between the canal and Harrow Road, was an industrial area which included the London Lock Hospital. The area added to the constituency after 1918 included some poor quality housing around the northern end of Westbourne Terrace, which was the scene for much of the 1950 film The Blue Lamp before being cleared and redeveloped by the London County Council as the Warwick Estate in the 1960s. The changes in 1918 also brought into the constituency the Paddington Railway station and Paddington Basin.
Overall, this made for a constituency which moved slowly but perceptibly down the social scale during the years, although the preponderance of the electorate were still prosperous at all times.
In 1966, 10% were born in the New Commonwealth.
Members of Parliament
ElectionMemberParty 1885 Lord Randolph Churchill Conservative 1895 by-election George Fardell Conservative 1910 Henry Harris Conservative 1922 Douglas King Conservative 1930 by-electionErnest Taylor Empire Free Trade Crusade 1931 Conservative 1950 Somerset de Chair Conservative 1951 Robert Allan Conservative 1966 Nicholas Scott Conservative Feb 1974constituency merged with Paddington North into Paddington
Political history 1885 At the 1885 general election, the seat was expected to be a reasonably fair bet for the Conservatives and therefore Conservative MP Lord Randolph Churchill chose it as a bolthole after his existing constituency of Woodstock was abolished in boundary changes. Churchill had originally declared his intention to fight in the Birmingham Central division, but decided to go for this constituency where he had his London home. Churchill was not a very great fan of the constituency, regarding it as inferior in social status to a rural Conservative stronghold.
There was a dispute within the local Liberal Association when it came to ballot on the selection of a candidate on 30 October 1885 between Alderman William Lawrence and Hilary Skinner. Lawrence, who was the incumbent Liberal MP for City of London, later complained that he had been induced to stand, and then found that a large number of previously unknown people who were not on the electoral register had been added to the committee only 48 hours before the ballot, and that that was the reason Skinner won on the night by seven votes. Lawrence therefore decided to fight the seat as an unofficial Liberal candidate. Skinner invited Lawrence to arbitration as to who should get the nomination, but Lawrence refused.
The end results proved that the expectations for the constituency had been accurate. Liberal voters remained loyal to their official candidate.
1886 For this election, the Liberal Party entered the contest with few illusions, given a national tide against them. Rev. Page Hopps, the Liberal candidate, came from Leicester and said at a public meeting at the opening of the campaign that he had no hope of beating Lord Randolph Churchill but had decided to fight because of abusive language used in Churchill's election address and in order to show him that he could not have South Paddington all to himself. Churchill was not daunted; his election address was the origin of the much-quoted description of Gladstone as "an old man in a hurry". The result was regarded as a strong rebuff to the local Liberals, and when Churchill had to submit to re-election following his appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he ran unopposed.
Later in 1886, Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, requiring a by-election in which he was re-elected unopposed.
1892 Churchill's relationship with his constituency association had come under strain following his resignation from the government and criticism of it. His dissatisfaction with the party became so widespread that it was rumoured that he intended to stand down, although no announcement was made. Eventually, with a general election imminent, on 3 February 1892 the Chairman of the Paddington South Conservative Association wrote to Churchill asking him to confirm whether it was his intention to seek re-election as a Conservative, and whether he would support the general policy of the Conservative Party. Churchill responded that he did intend seeking re-election, and it would be as a Conservative, and that he would give the same support he had given in the past. This response was not entirely satisfactory to the executive of the association, but a majority decided that he would be recommended for endorsement as their candidate.
Churchill's enthusiastic support for the Moderate (i.e. Conservative) candidates in the London County Council election of that spring helped his standing in the Conservative Association and the constituency, and when a general meeting of the Association was held in March, there were only four members voting against his endorsement. No Liberal candidate came forward and he was once again returned unopposed.
1895
The death of Lord Randolph Churchill led to a by-election at which the choice of Conservative candidate was the key decision. The first thought was that the constituency might prove a base for Charles Ritchie, the former President of the Local Government Board who had lost his seat in the east end in the 1892 election. However, Ritchie's role in establishing the London County Council had made him unpopular among Conservatives as the council had become a Liberal dominated body. Instead, the executive of the Paddington South Conservative Association unanimously chose their chairman, George Fardell, who had been a member of the Vestry, the Metropolitan Board of Works and the London County Council, and had a considerable popularity in the division (he claimed, and was not contradicted in the claim, that Lord Randolph Churchill had named him as his successor).
Among the ordinary members of the Association, Ritchie still had a following. At the general meeting of the Association on 2 February 1895, he sent a letter stating that he agreed that his name could go forward to follow Lord Randolph Churchill but did not want to consent to any course of action that would cause dissension in the Association. This diplomatic withdrawal was largely accepted and only one member (Sir Joseph Dimsdale) voted against the adoption of Fardell. The Liberals, having waited for the Conservatives to choose their candidate, again opted out of the contest given Fardell's popularity, and Fardell was returned unopposed.
Fardell was unanimously re-adopted in the general election a few months later, and again ran unopposed.
1900 Fardell faced no difficulties in securing renomination at this election. The Liberal Association sought a candidate to stand against him, but could not find one, and Fardell was therefore again unopposed.
1906 The local Liberal Party had only just divided up the St Pancras Liberal Association into two separate constituency associations for the North and South divisions. The newly formed South Paddington Liberal Association, under the presidency of Captain Sinclair, selected Williamson Milne. Milne was a Presbyterian, born in Glasgow in 1863. He was senior partner in the London firm of Milne, Gaff & Stirling, chartered accountants.London Daily News 26 December 1905 However, Fardell's popularity (he had been knighted since the previous election) held and he won the seat by nearly two to one.
1910