Eccles

Eccles may refer to:

Places

England

Scotland

France

United States

People

See Eccles (surname)

Transport

Eccles (character)

"Mad" Dan Eccles (/ˈɛkəlz/) is the name of a comedy character, created and performed by Spike Milligan, from the 1950s United Kingdom radio comedy series The Goon Show. In the episode "The Macreekie Rising of '74", Peter Sellers had to fill in for the role in Milligan's absence. Very occasionally, he was referred to as 'Mad Dan' Eccles.

Eccles was one of the show's secondary characters, but like his counterpart Bluebottle (portrayed by Sellers), Eccles became extremely popular and he is regarded as epitomising the show's humour.

Milligan visualised Eccles as a tall, lanky, amiable, well-meaning, but incredibly stupid teenager who often found himself involved—usually alongside Bluebottle—in one of the nefarious schemes created by arch-villain Hercules Grytpype-Thynne.

Physique

Eccles was often referred to as being something other than an ordinary human. Seagoon says of him "He was the nearest thing I had seen to a human being without actually being one" ("The Dreaded Batter Pudding Hurler of Bexhill-On-Sea"). In "Lurgi Strikes Britain", in a conversation about how Lurgi could easily kill every human in England, Eccles quips, "Then I'm okay, fellers!" In "The Greenslade Story", Grytpype-Thynne mentions that Eccles is colour-blind, and in "The Missing Scroll", Seagoon says of Eccles: "He was living proof that the Piltdown Skull was not a hoax."

Eccles (UK Parliament constituency)

Eccles was a parliamentary constituency of the United Kingdom, centred on the town of Eccles in Greater Manchester, England. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

History

The constituency was established under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 for the 1885 general election, and abolished at the 2010 general election.

Boundaries

1885–1918

The constituency, known as South East Lancashire, Eccles Division, was defined as consisting of the civil parishes of Barton upon Irwell, Clifton, Flixton, Urmston, Worsley and the part of the parish of Pendlebury not in the Parliamentary Borough of Salford.

1918–1983

The Representation of the People Act 1918 redrew all constituencies in Great Britain. The Parliamentary Borough of Eccles consisted of two local government districts: the Municipal Borough of Eccles and the Urban District of Swinton and Pendlebury (later incorporated as a borough). The seat was renamed Eccles Borough Constituency by the Representation of the People Act 1948.