Wellington (Somerset) (UK Parliament constituency)

Wellington (Somerset) is a former county constituency in the United Kingdom, formally known as The Western or Wellington Division of Somerset. 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 voting system, from 1885 until 1918.

History

Creation

The constituency was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885, and elected its first MP at the 1885 general election. It consisted of part of the previous West Somerset division, a two-member constituency which had existed between 1867 and 1885.

Boundaries

The constituency consisted of the western end of the county of Somerset, stretching to the suburbs of Taunton, and was predominantly rural and agricultural. Wellington, though the largest town, contributed only about an eighth of the population; other small towns within the division were Minehead, Watchet, Wiveliscombe, Dunster, Dulverton, Williton and Bishop's Lydeard. Although Taunton was a borough electing an MP in its own right, the franchise rules that applied in the 1885–1918 period allowed freeholders in boroughs to qualify for a vote in the adjoining county division as if the borough did not exist, and the Taunton freeholders were a significant presence in the Wellington constituency.

Wellington (CTA station)

Wellington is a Chicago 'L' station on the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Brown Line; Purple Line express trains also stop at the station during weekday rush hours. It is an elevated station with four tracks and two side platforms, located at 945 West Wellington Avenue in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. Red Line trains pass through the station on the middle tracks, but do not stop. The station was closed for renovations from March 30, 2008, until July 30, 2009.

History

Wellington station opened in 1900 as a local station on the original Northwestern Elevated Railroad route from Lake and Wells in downtown to Wilson Station.<ref name=Chicago-"L".org>Wellington Chicago-"L".org (URL accessed October 8, 2006).</ref> From the late 1940s Wellington became a station on the Ravenswood route (now the Brown Line). The original station house was demolished in the 1960s following a fire. Purple Line express trains began stopping at the station in 1998 as part of an effort to help alleviate congestion on the Brown Line.

Wellington, British Columbia, railway station

The Wellington railway station located in the Wellington area of Nanaimo, British Columbia, was a flag stop on Via Rail's Victoria – Courtenay train service, which ended in 2011. The station is on the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island mainline. This station was named after the town of Wellington which formed around and next to the Wellington Colliery which was named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, a leading British military and political figure in the 19th century.

History

Wellington station is one of the oldest and most historic stops on the Southern Railway of Vancouver Island Mainline.

Wellington station before the E&N

Before the E&N railway was extended to Wellington, the Wellington stop was part of the Wellington Colliery Railway line joining Wellington's Departure Bay wharf operations with the Wellington Colliery operations scattered around Wellington. The current flagstop site and siding, still in use today, are where the Wellington Colliery's scale was located for weighing the coal the miner's produced. It was this scale and siding which was the unlikely catalyst for Wellington Colliery's first bitter miner strike which served to entrench a tone of mistrust and bitterness amongst workers which quickly escalated future confrontations in Wellington, and persisted for decades across Vancouver Island as Wellington miners moved to new towns being built up by the railway and coal industry.

Wellington (footballer)

Wellington is the artist name of various Brazilian footballers:

See also

Somerset

Somerset (ⁱ/ˈsʌmərsɛt/ or /ˈsʌmərsᵻt/) is a county in South West England which borders Gloucestershire and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east and Devon to the south-west. It is bounded to the north and west by the Severn Estuary and the Bristol Channel, its coastline facing southeastern Wales. Its traditional border with Gloucestershire is the River Avon. Somerset's county town is Taunton.

Somerset is a rural county of rolling hills such as the Blackdown Hills, Mendip Hills, Quantock Hills and Exmoor National Park, and large flat expanses of land including the Somerset Levels. There is evidence of human occupation from Paleolithic times, and of subsequent settlement in the Roman and Anglo-Saxon periods. The county played a significant part in the consolidation of power and rise of King Alfred the Great, and later in the English Civil War and the Monmouth Rebellion. The city of Bath is famous for its substantial Georgian architecture and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Somerset (UK Parliament constituency)

Somerset was a parliamentary constituency in Somerset, which returned two Members of Parliament (MPs), known traditionally as knights of the shire, to the House of Commons of England until 1707, the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1832.

Elections were held by the bloc vote system.

Members of Parliament

MPs 1290–1629

MPs 1640–1832

References

Sources

Somerset (European Parliament constituency)

Somerset was a European Parliament constituency covering all of Somerset in England, and southern Avon.

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 consisted of the Westminster Parliament constituencies of Bath, Bridgwater, Somerset North, Taunton, Wells, Weston-super-Mare and Yeovil.

The constituency was replaced by much of Somerset and West Dorset and part of Bristol in 1984. Following further changes, these seats became part of the much larger South West England constituency in 1999.

Members of the European Parliament

Results

References

External links