Dulwich

Coordinates: 51°26′45″N 0°04′40″W / 51.4457°N 0.0779°W / 51.4457; -0.0779

Dulwich (/ˈdʌlᵻtʃ/) is an area of south London, England. The settlement is mostly in the London Borough of Southwark, with parts in the London Borough of Lambeth. Dulwich, consists of East Dulwich, West Dulwich and Dulwich Village and lies in a valley between the neighbouring districts of Camberwell, Crystal Palace, Denmark Hill, Forest Hill, Gipsy Hill, Knights Hill, Herne Hill, Honor Oak, Peckham, Penge, Sydenham Hill, Tulse Hill and West Norwood. Dulwich was in Surrey until 1889, when the County of London was created. The modern western boundary with the neighbouring Borough of Lambeth, Croxted Road, derives its name from a very old pilgrim way, Croke (crooked) Street.. Dulwich is also known as the location of the Dulwich Picture Gallery and Dulwich College.

History

The first documented evidence of Dulwich is as a hamlet outside London in 967AD, granted by King Edgar to one of his thanes Earl Aelfheah. The name of Dulwich has been spelt in various ways, Dilwihs, Dylways, Dullag, and may come from two old English words, Dill, a white flower, and wihs, meaning a damp meadow, giving a meaning of "the meadow where dill grows".

Dulwich (UK Parliament constituency)

Dulwich was a borough constituency in the Dulwich area of South London, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

The constituency was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election. The constituency was abolished by the Boundary Commission in 1997, when most of its former territory became part of the Dulwich and West Norwood constituency.

History

The constituency of Dulwich was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, as one of nine developed from the former two-seat constituency of Lambeth. Lambeth had been a solidly Liberal constituency. Dulwich was one of three seats in the new parliamentary borough of Camberwell.

As a suburban London constituency, Dulwich tended to favour the Conservatives, and returned a Conservative member in each election between 1885 and 1945, when it fell to the Labour party. After that it became a marginal seat, with Labour winning slightly more times than the Conservatives. In 1892 the Liberal candidate estimated that it had around 4,000 working class voters out of around 10,500 and observed that although it had a reputation as a 'villa constituency' there were many voters in the many less impressive houses.