Aberavon (UK Parliament constituency)
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| Aberavon in Wales |
Aberavon (Aberafan in Welsh) is a 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.
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Boundaries
The constituency is in south Wales, situated on the right bank of the River Afan, near its mouth in Swansea Bay. The original village of Aberavon or Aberafan is now a district of Port Talbot (so named to reflect the involvement of wealthy local landowner and MP Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot in improving Aberavon's harbour). The valley of the Afan as from about 1840 a place of much metallurgical activity, resulting in tinplate and engineering works (now mostly closed down).
The town derives its name from the river Avon (corrupted from Afan), which also gave its name to a medieval lordship. On the Norman conquest of Glamorgan, Caradoc, the eldest son of the defeated prince, Iestyn ab Gwrgant, continued to hold this lordship, and for the defence of the passage of the river built a castle whose foundations now lie underneath the streets around St Mary's church. His descendants (who from the 13th century onwards styled themselves De Avan or D'Avene) established, under line protection of the castle, a chartered town, which in 1372 received a further charter from Edward Le Despenser, into whose family the lordship had come on an exchange of lands. In modern times these charters were not acted upon, the town being deemed a borough by prescription, but in 1861 it was incorporated under the Municipal Corporations Act. From 1832 it belonged to the Swansea parliamentary district of boroughs, uniting with Kenfig, Loughor, Neath and Swansea to return one member; later it acquired its own MP, the most famous to hold the constituency having been Ramsay MacDonald.
Aberavon village hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1932 and 1966.
Member of Parliament
Election results
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