Cardiff East (1918–1950 UK Parliament constituency)

This article is about the historic Cardiff East constituency. For the new Cardiff East constituency (from 2024), see Cardiff East (UK Parliament constituency).

Cardiff East
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
1918–1950
Seats	one
Created from	Cardiff
Replaced by	Cardiff North and Cardiff South East

Cardiff East was a parliamentary constituency in Cardiff which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1918 until it was abolished for the 1950 general election.

Boundaries

Cardiff East included the County Borough of Cardiff wards of Park, Roath, and Splott.

The ward was abolished in 1950, with Roath and Splott becoming part of the new Cardiff South East ward and the remainder joining Cardiff North.

Members of Parliament

Election		Member	Party
	1918	Sir William Seager	Liberal
	1922	Lewis Lougher	Unionist
	1923	Sir Henry Webb	Liberal
	1924	Sir Clement Kinloch-Cooke	Unionist
	1929	James Edmunds	Labour
	1931	Owen Temple-Morris	Conservative
	1942 by-election	Sir James Grigg	National
	1945	Hilary Marquand	Labour
1950		constituency abolished

Election results

Elections in the 1910s

Seager

General election 1918: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	William Seager	7,963	40.8	N/A
	Unionist	Colum Crichton-Stuart	5,978	30.7	N/A
	Labour	Arthur Williams	5,554	28.5	N/A
Majority			1,985	10.1	N/A
Turnout			19,495	64.6	N/A
Registered electors			30,164
	Liberal win (new seat)

Seager received Coalition Government endorsement letter which was later withdrawn

Elections in the 1920s

General election 1922: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Lewis Lougher	8,804	36.8	6.1
	Liberal	Henry Webb	7,622	31.8	−9.0
	Labour	Arthur Williams	7,506	31.4	2.9
Majority			1,182	5.0	N/A
Turnout			23,932	81.0	16.4
Registered electors			29,532
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing	7.6

Webb

General election 1923: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Henry Webb	8,536	35.8	4.0
	Labour	Hugh Dalton	7,812	32.7	1.3
	Unionist	Lewis Lougher	7,513	31.5	−5.3
Majority			724	3.1	N/A
Turnout			23,861	79.3	−1.7
Registered electors			30,100
	Liberal gain from Unionist		Swing	1.4

Maclean

General election 1924: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Clement Kinloch-Cooke	10,036	40.3	8.8
	Labour	Harold Lloyd	8,156	32.8	0.1
	Liberal	Donald Maclean	6,684	26.9	−8.9
Majority			1,880	7.5	N/A
Turnout			24,876	82.3	3.0
Registered electors			30,218
	Unionist gain from Liberal		Swing	4.4

Emlyn-Jones

General election 1929: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	James Edmunds	12,813	39.0	6.2
	Liberal	John Emlyn-Jones	10,500	31.9	5.0
	Unionist	Clement Kinloch-Cooke	9,563	29.1	−11.2
Majority			2,313	7.1	N/A
Turnout			32,876	82.1	−0.2
Registered electors			40,061
	Labour gain from Unionist		Swing	0.6

Elections in the 1930s

General election 1931: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Owen Temple-Morris	12,465	38.6	8.5
	Labour	James Edmunds	10,292	31.8	−7.2
	Liberal	John Emlyn-Jones	9,559	29.6	−2.3
Majority			2,173	6.8	N/A
Turnout			32,316	80.2	−7.9
Registered electors			40,316
	Conservative gain from Labour		Swing

General election 1935: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Owen Temple-Morris	16,048	53.4	14.8
	Labour	William Bennett	11,362	37.8	6.0
	Liberal	Aubrey Willis Pile	2,623	8.7	−20.9
Majority			4,686	15.6	8.8
Turnout			30,033	73.1	−8.1
Registered electors			41,076
	Conservative hold		Swing

Elections in the 1940s

General Election 1939–40:

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1940. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place from 1939 and by the end of this year, the following candidates had been selected;

• Conservative: Owen Temple-Morris

Grigg

1942 Cardiff East by-election

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	National	James Grigg	10,030	75.2	N/A
	Ind. Labour Party	Fenner Brockway	3,311	24.8	N/A
Majority			6,719	50.4	N/A
Turnout			13,341	33.1	−40.0
Registered electors			40,254
	National hold		Swing

General election 1945: Cardiff East

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Hilary Marquand	16,299	50.7	12.9
	National	James Grigg	11,306	35.2	N/A
	Liberal	John Emlyn-Jones	4,523	14.1	5.4
Majority			4,993	15.5	N/A
Turnout			32,128	74.9	1.8
Registered electors			42,950
	Labour gain from National		Swing

The Western Mail described Sir James Grigg's defeat as "the most grievous" in the Cardiff area, considering Grigg had served as War Minister in the National government and "had proved an exceptionally valuable representative of Welsh interests in the highest quarter."

References

Craig, F. W. S. (1983). British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3 ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 2)