Barnet hasn't always been in Barnet, bits of it have been in Hertfordshire or Middlesex. Chipping Barnet MP Sir Sydney Chapman tackles the subject

of constituency boundaries

Parliamentary constituencies not only change their political allegiances and MPs from time to time they also frequently change their names and boundaries.

The movement of people and the significant increase in the number of electors in the second half of the last century (from 33 to 44 million) have inevitably caused a re-drawing of boundaries. My own seat is a good example.

The original Barnet constituency came into being only in 1945 and was carved out of the St Albans division in Hertfordshire. It then included Hatfield, Borehamwood, Shenley and Cuffley and the surrounding villages. However, the original seat contained no part of Finchley or Hendon, which were in Middlesex.

Ten years later, Barnet lost Hatfield and the northern villages and although Barnet Borough was created in 1965, this re-drawn seat survived until 1974, straddling London and Hertfordshire.

The first Barnet MP was Dr Stephen Taylor, who narrowly won the seat for Labour in the landslide election of 1945. He lost it at the following election to my predecessor, Reginald Maudling, who held the constituency until he died in 1979.

Dr Taylor subsequently spent many years in Canada and became a Life Peer as Lord Taylor of Harlow. Reggie Maudling became Chancellor of the Exchequer (1962-64) and Home Secretary (1970-72).

In the 1974 boundary re-distribution, it made sense to bring the Barnet constituency entirely within Greater London and Barnet had four constituencies: Chipping Barnet (the "Chipping" was added to avoid confusion with the Borough), Finchley, Hendon North and Hendon South.

Chipping Barnet thus lost Borehamwood and Elstree but gained parts of North Finchley and Woodside Park. The seat then remained unchanged for 25 years, with the borough just escaping the loss of one seat in the 1983 boundary review.

Based upon a mathematical formula, the number of electors in the borough gave Barnet an entitlement to 3.45 seats, but the electoral rules allowed a calculation to only one decimal point 3.45 therefore became 3.5 and 3.5 became four!

And so to 1997.

Barnet went down to three seats. Chipping Barnet took Friern Barnet ward from Finchley, which took the Garden Suburb and Golders Green wards from the old Hendon South. The remainder of Hendon South amalgamated with Hendon North.

Recently, most of Barnet's wards have been re-drawn and an extra one created so constituency boundaries will again be changed, but probably not until after the next general election.

December 18, 2001 17:18