1945–1950 Parliament of the United Kingdom | |||||
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Overview | |||||
Legislative body | Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||||
Term | 26 July 1945 – 23 February 1950 | ||||
Election | 1945 United Kingdom general election | ||||
Government | First Attlee ministry | ||||
House of Commons | |||||
Members | 640 | ||||
Speaker | Douglas Clifton Brown | ||||
Leader | Herbert Morrison James Chuter Ede | ||||
Prime Minister | Clement Attlee | ||||
Leader of the Opposition | Winston Churchill | ||||
Third-party leader | Clement Davies | ||||
House of Lords | |||||
Lord Chancellor | Earl Jowitt |
This is a complete list of members of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1945 general election, held on 5 July 1945. See also, Constituency election results in the 1945 United Kingdom general election. 324 MPs were elected for the first time which is the record turnover of new members as of 2024. [1]
Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included Michael Stewart, George Brown, Hartley Shawcross, Barbara Castle, Bessie Braddock, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, George Thomas, George Wigg, Woodrow Wyatt, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Hugh Gaitskell, Derick Heathcoat-Amory and Selwyn Lloyd.
This diagram show the composition of the parties in the 1945 general election.
Note: This is not the official seating plan of the House of Commons, which has five rows of benches on each side, with the government party to the right of the speaker and opposition parties to the left, but with room for only around two-thirds of MPs to sit at any one time. The Commons Chamber was hit by bombs and the roof of Westminster Hall was set on fire. The fire service said that it would be impossible to save both, so it was decided to concentrate on saving the Hall. The Commons Chamber was entirely destroyed by the fire which spread to the Members' Lobby and caused the ceiling to collapse. By the following morning, all that was left of the Chamber was a smoking shell. As the Commons Chamber was totally destroyed and the Lords Chamber was damaged, both Houses moved to the Church House annexe and sat there from 13 May. From late June 1941 until October 1950, the Commons met in the Lords Chamber, while the Lords met in the Robing Room (a fact which was kept secret during the war). [2]
Affiliation | Members | |
Labour Party | 393 | |
Conservative Party | 197 | |
Liberal Party | 12 | |
National Liberal | 11 | |
Independent | 8 | |
National Government | 4 | |
ILP | 3 | |
Communist | 2 | |
Independent Labour | 2 | |
Independent Conservative | 2 | |
Nationalist | 2 | |
Independent Liberal | 2 | |
Common Wealth | 1 | |
Independent Progressive | 1 | |
Total | 640 | |
Effective government majority | 145 |
° Sir Edward Campbell died on 17 July and Leslie Pym died on 18 July before the poll was announced. By-elections were held in the autumn
× The sitting MP for Hull, Central, Walter Windsor, died during the election campaign. Mark Hewitson was elected in a postponed poll in August.
See the list of United Kingdom by-elections.
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