Guildford

Coordinates: 51°14′11″N 0°34′13″W / 51.2365°N 0.5703°W / 51.2365; -0.5703

Guildford ⁱ/ˈɡɪlfərd/ is the historic county town of Surrey, England and the seat of the borough of Guildford. The town is 27 miles (43 km) southwest of central London on the A3 trunk road mid-way between the capital and Portsmouth.

Guildford has Saxon roots and historians attribute its location to the existence of a gap in the North Downs where the River Wey was forded by the Harrow Way By AD 978 it was home to an early English Royal Mint. On the building of the Wey Navigation and Basingstoke Canal Guildford was connected to a network of waterways that aided its prosperity. In the 20th century, the University of Surrey and Guildford Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral, were added.

Due to recent development running north from Guildford, and linking to the Woking area, Guildford now officially forms the southwestern tip of the Greater London Built-up Area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

History

Borough of Guildford

Coordinates: 51°14′46″N 0°33′07″W / 51.246°N 0.552°W / 51.246; -0.552

The Borough of Guildford is a local government district with borough status in Surrey, England. Guildford is its largest settlement, only town and is the location of the council.

The district was formed on 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972 by an amalgamation of the municipal borough of Guildford and Guildford Rural District.

Functions

Borough councillors and officers work on devolved issues such as parks, leisure, older residents' services, youth services, streetscene, refuse collection, planning and aspects of business and tourism;Surrey County Council deal with transport, publicly owned infrastructure planning and maintenance, education, social services and overall waste management. The Borough owns significant heritage assets that include monuments such as Guildford Castle, as well museums, art collections and civic regalia.

Population

Guildford has the second largest population of Surrey's eleven districts (based on census statistics, only 600 residents behind Reigate and Banstead). Approximately half of the Borough’s population live in the town of Guildford.

Guildford (UK Parliament constituency)

Coordinates: 51°14′46″N 0°33′07″W / 51.246°N 0.552°W / 51.246; -0.552

Guildford is a constituency in Surrey represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Anne Milton, a Conservative.

History

From the first Commons in the Model Parliament of 1295 Guildford was a parliamentary borough sending two members to Parliament until 1868 and one until 1885. In the latter years of sending two members a bloc vote system of elections was used.

Before 1885 the constituency covered the town of Guildford only. The parliamentary borough was abolished under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 however replaced by a new type of seat, named, Guildford (a county division of Surrey) which covered a much wider geographical area.

Boundaries

The constituency covers Guildford and the surrounding area in the county of Surrey. After the decision of the Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies which reported for the 2010 general election, the electoral wards had electoral wards:

Guildford (1810 ship)

Guildford was a two-decker merchant ship launched in 1810. She transported convicts to New South Wales. Of her eight voyages delivering convicts, for three she was under charter to the British East India Company (EIC). She underwent major repairs in 1819, her hull was sheathed in copper in 1822; in 1825 she received new wales, top sides and deck, the copper was repaired and other repairs. Guildford was lost without a trace in 1831.

Voyages

Magnus Johnson was Guildford's captain on her first seven voyages. On 4 July 1811 he received a letter of marque, which authorised Guildford, while under his command, to engage in offensive, and not just defensive, action against the French.Lloyd's Register for 1810 lists her trade as London-Jamaica.

On her first convict voyage, Guildford left London on 3 September 1811 in company with General Graham. She reached Rio de Janeiro on 27 October, and arrived at Port Jackson on 18 January 1812.Guildford carried 200 male convicts, one of whom died during the voyage.

Surrey

Surrey /ˈsʌri/ is a county in the south east of England, one of the home counties bordering Greater London. Surrey also borders Kent to the east, East Sussex to the south-east, West Sussex to the south, Hampshire to the west and south-west and Berkshire to the north-west. The county town is Guildford.Surrey County Council sits extraterritorially at Kingston upon Thames, administered as part of Greater London since 1965.

The London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Wandsworth, and parts of Lewisham and Bromley were in Surrey until 1889. The boroughs of Croydon, Kingston upon Thames, Merton, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames south of the River Thames were part of Surrey until 1965, when they too were absorbed into Greater London. In the same year, the county gained its first area north of the Thames, Spelthorne, from defunct Middlesex. As a result of this gain, modern Surrey also borders on the London boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon.

Today, administrative Surrey is divided into eleven districts: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley and Woking. Services such as roads, mineral extraction licensing, education, strategic waste and recycling infrastructure, birth marriage and death registration and social and children's services are administered by Surrey County Council.

Surrey (provincial electoral district)

Surrey was a provincial electoral district in the Canadian province of British Columbia from 1966 to 1983. The area it covered was formerly part of the electoral district of Delta. It returned one member to the Legislative Assembly of B.C. from 1966 to 1975 and two members thereafter.

For other historical and current ridings in Vancouver or the North Shore see Vancouver (electoral districts). For other Greater Vancouver area ridings please see New Westminster (electoral districts).

Demographics

Notable MLAs

Electoral history

The riding was reconstituted into three ridings for the 1986 election: Surrey-Newton, Surrey-Guildford-Whalley and Surrey-White Rock-Cloverdale. These were later reconstituted into the following ridings:

Surrey (European Parliament constituency)

Prior to its uniform adoption of proportional representation in 1999, the United Kingdom used first-past-the-post for the European elections in England, Scotland and Wales. The European Parliament constituencies used under that system were smaller than the later regional constituencies and only had one Member of the European Parliament each.

The constituency of Surrey was one of them.

When it was created in England in 1979, it consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Chertsey and Walton, Dorking, Epsom and Ewell, Esher, Guildford, Reigate, Surrey North West, and Woking.

It was split in 1984, with the eastern half merging with London South as London South and Surrey East and the rest becoming Surrey West.

The constituency was re-created in 1994, consisting of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Chertsey and Walton, Esher, Guildford, Mole Valley, North West Surrey, Reigate, and Woking.

References

External links