Paddington North
Paddington North was a borough constituency in the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington, in London which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system. It was created in 1885 and abolished for the February 1974 general election.
It was a compact and mixed residential area which included some grand mansion blocks of flats, large runs of typical London terraced houses, and some areas of working-class housing. The constituency moved slowly down the social scale during its existence and the construction of large amounts of social housing following the Second World War made what had been a Conservative-inclined marginal seat into a reasonably safe Labour one. The area has a history of multiple ethnicity, French Huguenots settled in the village of Paddington in the eighteenth century, and in subsequent generations there were arrivals of Greek, Jewish, and Asian groups. Arab communities later became established along Edgware Road, recently there are as many south Asians as white English residents and many other ethnicities, Paddington is considered a neighbourhood of Westminster UK in northwest of London UK.
Boundaries
The constituency was originally made up by the northern part of Paddington Parish. In the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885 it was defined as the number 2 ward of the Parish. Although Paddington had four wards, they had been drawn up thirty years before, and the number 2 ward had, by the mid-1880s, the majority of the electorate of the parish.In the boundary changes in 1918, the constituency was refashioned as the northern part of the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington. The Borough had incorporated an area formerly included in a detached part of Chelsea parish at Kensal Town, and further population expansion made the north of the Borough even more densely packed, so a shift of the boundary was required. In the end, it was decided to include the whole of the Harrow Road, Queen's Park and Maida Vale wards of Paddington, together with part of the Church ward north of the Harrow Road and Little Venice canal basin.
In the boundary changes of 1948, the constituency's boundaries did not change, but the Church ward, which had been divided along the same line as the previous Parliamentary boundary with the part in Paddington North was renamed as the Town ward.
Constituency profile
In contrast to the southern division of Paddington, the area was almost entirely residential. When first drawn up in 1885, the development of Maida Vale had not yet been completed and parts remained agricultural fields.Up to 1918 the constituency included Paddington railway station and the Paddington canal basin, together with St Mary's Hospital. The south-east of the constituency included some Edgware Road frontage which included The Metropolitan Theatre music hall, a famous entertainment centre which was open for almost all of the time that the constituency was in existence. Between the Harrow Road and the canals of Little Venice was a densely packed area developed in the 1840s around the older St. Mary's Church and its churchyard. This area included Paddington Green and some homes and was the origin of the settlement of Paddington.
North of the canal and stretching up Maida Vale itself were situated large detached houses with gardens. At the start of the constituency's existence most were occupied by a single family, but as time went on the families took in lodgers and eventually split their homes into flats. Along Maida Vale, the 1930s saw the building of new mansion blocks, a type of housing that already predominated along Elgin Avenue and some of the other streets from the time they were first built.
The constituency descended the social scale as one travelled to the west, with the houses becoming smaller and more cheaply built; Shirland Road was the approximate boundary of the two zones. Between the canal and the Harrow Road above Little Venice was an area around Westbourne Square which quickly became slumland, although this was not typical of the area north of the canal. Much of this area was lost to Paddington South in 1918. Further up Harrow Road, the homes were typical of London terraces. One unusual feature was J. Welford's dairies, built on the corner of Shirland Road and Elgin Avenue in the 1880s and one of the most distinctive buildings of the area.
Following the boundary revisions of 1918, the constituency included the area of Queen's Park ward of Paddington Borough Council which had previously been a detached part of Chelsea. This area was developed from the 1870s explicitly as housing for the working class, by the Artizans, Labourers, and General Dwellings Company. They built modestly sized two storey homes which were rented out to the skilled working-class, many of whom were railway employees at Paddington station and its associated goods yard.
Changes and redevelopment
With the area being encircled by London, there came to be an economic motive for demolishing some of the existing low-density housing and rebuilding at higher densities for the working class. In 1937 the Church Commissioners built Dibden House containing some 200 flats for social rents at the top of Maida Vale. Following the Second World War there was a great deal of development of large social housing in the constituency. The first large development was John Aird Court and Fleming Court, built by the Labour-controlled Paddington Borough Council adjacent to the Harrow Road by Paddington Green in 1948.The largest redevelopment took place along Maida Vale itself and was undertaken by the London County Council from 1959 to 1964. The area was rebuilt as an estate of mid-rise and high-rise flats. At the same time, the Church Commissioners also built the Stuart Tower on the corner of Maida Vale and Sutherland Avenue for private ownership. Further north along Carlton Vale the LCC built low rise flats. The southern end of the constituency saw a great deal of demolition in order to build the Marylebone flyover and rebuild the Harrow Road.
The 1960s saw the GLC redevelop the area around the junction of Elgin Avenue with Harrow Road with two 20-storey tower blocks. It decided to experiment with a new construction method called 'Indulex' with these two blocks and two others to be built in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The blocks consisted of a steel frame clad in glass-reinforced polyester.
Political history
1885
In preparation for the 1885 general election, the creation of a new division in North West London which was potentially winnable by either the Conservatives or the Liberals excited some interest. The Conservatives were the first to select, and did so without difficulty. Lionel Louis Cohen was in his early-fifties and a leading light in the City of London Conservative Association; he was also President of the Jewish Board of Guardians. Although he was a resident of Marylebone, Cohen's wife came from Paddington. Cohen had the benefit of speeches from Lord Randolph Churchill who had been selected for Paddington South.The North Paddington Liberal Council did encounter difficulty in selecting a candidate. They sent out invitations to several likely candidates to speak to a public meeting: Henry Gladstone, younger son of Liberal Leader William Ewart Gladstone, accepted, as did Thomas Chatfeild Clarke, John Westlake QC, and Rev. William Sharman. However, Eugene Collins, whose constituency of Kinsale was being abolished, refused to participate in a contested selection. The council eventually selected none of these: William Digby, a writer, ended up contesting the seat. Digby was a strong advocate of greater power for Indian natives.
At the start of the election, it appeared that things were not going well for the Conservatives. A public meeting in support of Lionel Cohen heard a derisive mention made of Joseph Chamberlain's promise of "three acres and a cow" for the working-class, and some cheered Chamberlain wildly. When the meeting concluded the chairman put a motion of confidence in their candidate, but on hearing that few present supported it, did not ask for people to show their opposition: the crowd demanded it and voted strongly against Cohen. On Monday 7 November 1885, a 2,000-strong crowd of working men gathered in Harrow Road to march to a meeting which denounced Cohen for supporting protectionism, although Cohen had declared his support for free trade in his election address.
At the end of the campaign, an issue was made in the Jewish Chronicle of Cohen's support for the Marquess of Salisbury, who had opposed the removal of legal disabilities affecting Jews in the 1850s. Cohen insisted that his activities in the Jewish community were not political and denounced attempts to "pit one section of Jews against another"; later the Marquess of Salisbury was himself moved to write to condemn the attempt to drag in a speech he had made nearly thirty years before. Digby received the support of the local branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants at a meeting held on Praed Street next to Paddington station.
As polling day approached, the Conservatives became more confident of victory, believing that the Roman Catholic, Jewish and Church of England blocks of votes were likely to be solid in support of Cohen. The non-conformists were also strong in the division and so the Liberals were also reporting confidence. On polling day it turned out that the Conservatives had the majority, although with a narrow lead of only 685 votes, the seat was evidently not safe.
1886
As an election loomed in June 1886, Lionel Cohen declared his intention to fight the seat again. Almost simultaneously, William Digby announced that he would not be a candidate again. The Paddington North Liberals therefore invited John Kempster, who had contested Enfield at the 1885 election, to be their candidate. Kempster was a Director of the Artizans, Labourers, and General Dwellings Company Ltd and therefore a popular man among the working-class residents in the constituency.At this election, the Irish vote switched sides: having backed the Conservatives in 1885 during a temporary alliance over opposition to the Liberal budget, Gladstone's announcement of his support for home rule for Ireland led to strong support for the Liberals. The Irish vote in Paddington North was sizable and Cohen's denunciation of home rule together with Kempster's support for it had its effect in reducing the impact of a strong national trend towards the Conservatives. Cohen was re-elected with a slightly increased majority of 911 votes.