Talk:Birmingham Aston (UK Parliament constituency)

Proposed splitting out of Aston Manor

I propose that the sections of this article relating to the 1885-1918 "Aston Manor" constituency be split out into a separate article called Aston Manor (UK Parliament constituency) (which is currently a redirect). This follows long-standing practice at WP:UKPC of having one article per constituency name, except in a few rare cases (such as where names were translated).

The current coverage of the two constituencies in one article risks misleading speed-readers into thinking that the MPs and candidates in 1885-1918 stood in a division of the city of Birmingham, whereas they were actually contesting a parliamentary borough in Warwickshire. It also risks misleading editors into describing candidates from that period as having contested (or even been elected for!) a part of Birmingham, which would simply be untrue.

I will leave a note a WT:UKPC. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 17:23, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The article says that Birmingham "gradually" expanded. This has a false implication. The city expanded in successive stages. My question is whether the post-1918 and pre-1918 consituencies in fact covered a different area or the same one (or substantially so with a different status. Similar problems arise elsewhere: I suspect that Kingswinford and Brierley Hill consistuencies were in fact the same area but renamed due to Kingswinford RDC being split and Kingswinford itself amalgamated with Brierley Hill UDC. We have constuencies called South Staffordshire at two periods, but I suspect that they covered areas of quite different extent, while the present constiuency was partly the result of renaming Southwest Staffordshire. Equally, Bewdley was at one period a borough and later a county division. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for a belated reply.

It's been long-standing practice to have one article per constituency name. That's the only way to avoid a horrendous tangle in links, because so many boroughs were abolished in 1885 and their names transferred to county divisions that we'd have a horrendous mess of article naming if we split them; instead we explain the change in the article.

The situation here is rather simpler. The 1885-1918 constituency was "Aston Manor", a parliamentary borough in Warwickshire ... but the post-1918 constituency was a division of Birmingham called "Aston", not "Aston Manor". Not the same name.

In the text of the article(s), we can explain what happened to the boundaries etc ... but in the meantime we have two constituencies of difft names sharing the same article.

Anyway, since I don't read Peterkingiron's reply as an objection to the split, I'll do it in a few weeks when I return from my travels. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 10:17, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I was responsible for creating one article covering Aston Manor and Brimingham Aston. I may well have made the wrong call, as it does produce an anomaly compared to many other areas. If you want to do separate articles, I would not object.

One of the problems with doing constituency articles is that there has been considerable change in local government boundaries and/or names over time. It is difficult to be certain if a constituency with the same or a similar name, in different periods, covered roughly the same area. I suppose we really need a project to produce a map for every version of each constituency. This has been done for some London constituencies (see Chelsea (UK Parliament constituency)). It would be a mammoth task to make the maps accurate, over the whole country. --Gary J (talk) 14:50, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Article now split. The 1885–1918 period is now covered in a separate article: Aston Manor (UK Parliament constituency). --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 12:34, 3 January 2012 (UTC)