Surrey, British Columbia

Surrey is a city in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver regional district and metropolitan area. Surrey is the province's third largest city by area, after Abbotsford and Prince George, and the second-largest city by population after the city of Vancouver.

The six "town centres" the City of Surrey comprises are: Fleetwood, Whalley/City Centre, Guildford, Newton, Cloverdale, and South Surrey.

History

Surrey became incorporated in 1879, and encompasses land formerly occupied by a number of Halqemeylem-speaking aboriginal groups. When Englishman H.J. Brewer looked across the Fraser River from New Westminster and saw a land reminiscent of his native County of Surrey in England, the settlement of Surrey was placed on the map. The area then comprised forests of douglas-fir, fir, red cedar, hemlock, blackberry bushes, and cranberry bogs. A portion of present-day Whalley (named after Harry Whalley, who owned and operated a gas bar at the bend in King George Blvd, (formerly King George Highway) at 108 Avenue, "Whalley's Corner") was used as a burial ground by the Kwantlen (or Qw’ontl’en) Nation.

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