1955–1959 Parliament of the United Kingdom | |||||
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Overview | |||||
Legislative body | Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||||
Term | 26 May 1955 – 16 October 1959 | ||||
Election | 1955 United Kingdom general election | ||||
Government | Eden ministry First Macmillan ministry | ||||
House of Commons | |||||
Members | 630 | ||||
Speaker | William Morrison | ||||
Leader | Harry Crookshank R. A. Butler | ||||
Prime Minister | Anthony Eden Harold Macmillan | ||||
Leader of the Opposition | Herbert Morrison Hugh Gaitskell | ||||
Third-party leader | Clement Davies Jo Grimond | ||||
House of Lords | |||||
Lord Chancellor | Viscount Kilmuir |
This is a list of members of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom at the 1955 general election, held on 26 May 1955. A total of 630 MPs were elected.
Notable newcomers to the House of Commons included William Whitelaw and Geoffrey Rippon.
These representative diagrams show the composition of the parties in the 1955 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.
Affiliation | Members | |
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Conservative Party | 345 | |
Labour Party | 277 | |
Liberal Party | 6 | |
Sinn Féin | 2 | |
Total | 630 | |
Effective government majority | 29 |
See the list of United Kingdom by-elections.
The politics of Scotland operate within the constitution of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is a country. Scotland is a democracy, being represented in both the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament of the United Kingdom since the Scotland Act 1998. Most executive power is exercised by the Scottish Government, led by the First Minister of Scotland, the head of government in a multi-party system. The judiciary of Scotland, dealing with Scots law, is independent of the legislature and the Scottish Government. Scots law is primarily determined by the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government shares some executive powers with the Scotland Office, a British government department led by the Secretary of State for Scotland.
The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election in 1951. It was a snap election: after Winston Churchill retired in April 1955, Anthony Eden took over and immediately called the election in order to gain a mandate for his government. It resulted in a majority of 60 seats for the government; the result remains the largest party share of the vote at a post-war general election. This was the first general election to be held during the reign of Elizabeth II. She had succeeded her father George VI the year after the previous election.
The 1959 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 8 October 1959. It marked a third consecutive victory for the ruling Conservative Party, now led by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. For the second time in a row, the Conservatives increased their overall majority in Parliament, this time to a landslide majority of 100 seats, having gained 20 seats for a return of 365. The Labour Party, led by Hugh Gaitskell, lost 19 seats and returned 258. The Liberal Party, led by Jo Grimond, again returned only six MPs to the House of Commons, but managed to increase its overall share of the vote to 5.9%, compared to just 2.7% four years earlier.
Following is a list of past United Kingdom MPs in alphabetical order.
West Dunbartonshire is a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election and covers the same area as the county of West Dunbartonshire.
In the United Kingdom, a member of Parliament (MP) is an individual elected to serve in the House of Commons, the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Croydon North East was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1955 to 1997. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election.
The fifty-fifth Parliament of the United Kingdom was the legislature of the United Kingdom following the 2010 general election of members of parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, was convened on 25 May 2010 at the Palace of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II. It was dissolved on 30 March 2015, being 25 working days ahead of the 2015 general election on 7 May 2015.