Hemsworth (UK Parliament constituency)

Hemsworth
County constituency for the House of Commons
Boundary of Hemsworth in West Yorkshire for the 2010 general election.
Location of West Yorkshire within England.
County	West Yorkshire
Electorate	73,487 (December 2010)
Major settlements	South Wakefield, Hemsworth and Featherstone
Current constituency
Created	1918
Member of parliament	Jon Trickett (Labour)
Number of members	One
Created from	Barnsley and Osgoldcross
Overlaps
European Parliament constituency	Yorkshire and the Humber

Coordinates: 53°36′50″N 1°21′14″W / 53.614°N 1.354°W / 53.614; -1.354

Hemsworth is a constituency in West Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons since 1996 by Jon Trickett of the Labour Party.

The constituency comprises former coal mining towns and villages that also provided some of the workforce for the manufacturing bases of the town of Barnsley to the south and cities of Wakefield and Leeds to the northwest. Many constituents still commute to these today. Nearby to the east over the border in North Yorkshire is Kellingley Colliery, one of six functional coal mines and only three deep mines still in major production. It is the Labour Party's longest held seat, having elected its first Labour MP in 1918, and been in continuous existence since that date.

From the 1966 to February 1974 general elections (inclusive), Hemsworth was the safest seat for any party in the UK: the Labour vote had peaked in 1966 at 85.39% and consistently exceeded 80% from 1935 until October 1974 when the Liberal Party contested the seat for the first time since 1923. Successive boundary changes removed certain ex-mining communities to the new Barnsley East constituency in 1983: this and the addition of the highest income part of Wakefield in 1997 slightly reduced Labour's dominance, but Hemsworth remains a safe seat.