Mid Oxfordshire
Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1974-1983
Mid Oxfordshire was a parliamentary constituency in Oxfordshire, returning one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Unusually, its official name - Mid-Oxon - incorporated an abbreviation (Oxon, for Oxonia) but the full form of the county name was and is normally used in referring to the constituency.
The constituency was created for the February 1974 general election from parts of the seats of Banbury and Henley, and abolished for the 1983 general election.
Throughout its existence, the seat was represented for the Conservatives by Douglas Hurd with comfortable majorities.
Boundaries
The Urban District of Witney;
The Rural District of Witney; and
Parts of the Rural Districts of Bullingdon and Ploughley.
The constituency was formed largely from the constituency of Banbury, incorporating the Urban and Rural Districts of Witney and the parts of the Rural District of Ploughley in Banbury, including Kidlington. It also included further parts of the Rural District of Ploughley (to the south of Bicester) and northernmost parts of the Rural District of Bullingdon (to the east of Oxford), transferred from Henley.
It was abolished in 1983, following the reform of local government districts which came into effect in 1974. The bulk of the constituency, including the areas constituting the former Urban and Rural Districts of Witney, together with the town of Kidlington, formed the new constituency of Witney. Eastern rural areas were transferred to Banbury and Henley, with the wards of Marston and Risinghurst being included in the new constituency of Oxford East.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Mid Oxfordshire” is parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1974-1983. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Oxfordshire, Parliamentary and constituency, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1974-1983” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q11797272. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1974 and 1983.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. 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.
- Subject orientation
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- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Mid Oxfordshire”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Mid Oxfordshire primary sources, Mid Oxfordshire archive and Oxfordshire research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Mid Oxfordshire”?
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- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Mid Oxfordshire” 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.