1918-1950: The Municipal Borough of Newark, and the Rural Districts of Bingham, Newark, and Southwell.
1950-1983: The Municipal Borough of Newark, the Urban District of Mansfield Woodhouse, and the Rural Districts of Newark and Southwell.
1983-1997: The District of Newark wards of Beacon, Bridge, Bullpit Pinfold, Castle, Caunton, Collingham, Devon, Elston, Farndon, Magnus, Meering, Milton Lowfield, Muskham, Southwell East, Southwell West, Sutton on Trent, Trent, and Winthorpe, and the District of Bassetlaw wards of East Markham, East Retford East, East Retford North, East Retford West, Elkesley, Trent, and Tuxford.
1997-2010: The District of Newark and Sherwood wards of Beacon, Bridge, Bullpit Pinfold, Castle, Caunton, Collingham, Devon, Elston, Farndon, Magnus, Meering, Milton Lowfield, Muskham, Southwell East, Southwell West, Sutton on Trent, Trent, and Winthorpe, and the District of Bassetlaw wards of East Markham, East Retford East, East Retford North, East Retford West, Elkesley, Trent, and Tuxford.
2010-present: The District of Newark and Sherwood wards of Balderton North, Balderton West, Beacon, Bridge, Castle, Caunton, Collingham and Meering, Devon, Farndon, Lowdham, Magnus, Muskham, Southwell East, Southwell North, Southwell West, Sutton-on-Trent, Trent, and Winthorpe, the District of Bassetlaw wards of East Markham, Rampton, Tuxford, and Trent, and the Borough of Rushcliffe wards of Bingham East, Bingham West, Cranmer, Oak, and Thoroton.
More recently, the Labour Party held Newark (on substantially different boundaries to the present ones) from 1950 until 1979, when it was taken by the Conservatives' Richard Alexander. Alexander lost his seat during Labour's landslide victory at the 1997 general election. The victorious Labour candidate, Fiona Jones, was convicted of electoral fraud and expelled from the House of Commons in 1999 over misrepresented election expenses. The conviction was later overturned upon appeal and she returned to Parliament. However, Jones lost her seat at the 2001 general election to Patrick Mercer of the Conservatives, who held it until 2014.
Mercer held the position of Shadow Minister for Homeland Security from June 2003 until March 2007, when he was forced to resign following racially contentious comments made to The Times.[2]
The Newark constituency in 2010 lost the town of Retford to the Bassetlaw constituency (although Newark still has a smaller part of the Bassetlaw district), but gained land in and around Bingham from the Rushcliffe constituency.
Following an investigation by Commons authorities finding that Mr Mercer had engaged in paid lobbying, not properly reported the income or declared his interest, and repeatedly seriously denigrating other members, Patrick Mercer stepped down as MP for Newark on 30 April 2014.[3]
Constituency profile
Many towns are historic in architecture[4] with many well-preserved listed buildings[5] whereas much of the council housing in the constituency has been privately acquired and improved under the right to buy.[6] Nonetheless there is a significant minority of social housing but this dependency and the proportion of flats is lower than the national average across the three districts.[7]
Labour held the seat for one term following their 1997 landslide victory, but subsequent boundary changes have brought in more rural areas and made the seat more favourable towards the Conservatives who, until the results of the 2014 European elections, appeared to have a firm hold on the constituency.
^Craig, F. W. S. (1989) [1977]. British parliamentary election results 1832–1885 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 215–6. ISBN0-900178-26-4.