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Silvertown
Former borough constituency for the House of Commons
Silvertown in Essex, showing boundaries used from 1918 to 1950.
County	Essex
1918–1950
Seats	One
Created from	West Ham South
Replaced by	West Ham South

Silvertown was a borough constituency returning a single Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom through the first-past-the-post voting system. The constituency was one of four divisions of the Parliamentary Borough of West Ham, which had at the time the same boundaries as the County Borough of West Ham. Although administratively separate since 1889, the area was formally part of the county of Essex; since 1965 it has been part of the London Borough of Newham in Greater London.

The creation of the constituency was recommended by the Boundary Commission in a report issued in 1917, and formally created by the Representation of the People Act 1918. It came into existence at the 1918 general election. As the borough of West Ham had only 120,586 electors on 15 October 1946, the relevant date for the subsequent Boundary Commission review, the borough was only entitled to two Members of Parliament; North and South divisions were recommended. As a consequence Silvertown was abolished as a separate constituency by the Representation of the People Act 1948 and went out of existence at the 1950 general election.

Boundaries

Silvertown was based on the two wards of Custom House and Silvertown (based either side of the Royal Victoria Dock), and Tidal Basin, which was to its north-west. The large wards in the southern County Borough of West Ham at the time of the 1917 Boundary Commission review made it necessary to split one ward across two constituencies, or else the divisions of West Ham would have had significantly different sizes. The ward which was split was the Canning Town ward, the southern part of which was included in Silvertown: the commissioners drew a line along the centre of the Woolwich branch of the Great Eastern Railway (now the North London Line) from Canning Town station north to join up with Star Lane (near the future Star Lane DLR station), then east along Star Lane, to join up with the ward boundary at Hermit Lane and Beckton Road.

Members of Parliament

Election results

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "S" (part 3)

1. "103. Parliamentary Borough of West Ham" in "Report of the Boundary Commission (England and Wales)", vol. III (Cd. 8758).
2. "Debrett's House of Commons and Judicial Bench, 1921", p. 267.
3. "Debrett's House of Commons and Judicial Bench, 1923", p. 232.
4. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 151.
5. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 1.
6. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 114.
7. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 109.
8. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 150.
9. "Labour Victory At Silvertown", The Times, 24 February 1940, p. 6.
10. "Return of Election Expenses", HCP 128.

• Parliamentary constituencies in London (historic)
• Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom established in 1918
• Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom disestablished in 1950
• Politics of the London Borough of Newham