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North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)

Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1868-1918

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ7054037 ↗
Source-derived summary

North Ayrshire was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1868 until 1918. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP), using the first-past-the-post voting system.

Boundaries

The Representation of the People (Scotland) Act 1868 provided that the new North Ayrshire constituency was to consist of the District of Cunningham, consisting of the parishes of Ardrossan, Dalry, Dreghorn, Fenwick, Irvine, Kilbirnie, Kilmarnock, Kilmaurs, Kilwinning, Largs, Loudoun, Stevenston, Stewarton, West Kilbride and Beith, and the parish of Dunlop so far as situated within the County of Ayr.

Members of Parliament

Election results

Elections in the 1860s

Elections in the 1870s

Elections in the 1880s

Elections in the 1890s

Elections in the 1900s

Elections in the 1910s

General Election 1914–15:

Another General Election was required to take place before the end of 1915. The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected;

Unionist: Duncan Campbell

Liberal: Andrew Anderson

*Chalmers was supported by the Union of Democratic Control and contested the 1918 general election as a Labour Party candidate.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)” as parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1868-1918. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around North, Ayrshire and Parliament.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1868, 1918, 1914, 1915—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1868-11-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with North, Ayrshire and Parliament providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)”, the useful work is to connect “parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1868-1918” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7054037. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1868, 1918, 1914 and 1915.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency) primary sources, North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency) archive and North research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “North Ayrshire (UK Parliament constituency)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.