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Book Review Wales at Westminster: A History of the Parliamentary Represent- ations of Wales 1800-1979. A.J.James and J.E.Thomas. Gomer Press, Llandysul, (1981) pp. 284. ISBN 0 85088 684 8. Price (hardback) £ 9.75 Hard on the heels of Balsom and Burch's "A Political and Electoral Handbook for Wales" (1980) we have a second reference work, by the Principal of Barry College of Further Education and his historian colleague, devoted to parliamentary representation and electoral change in modern Welsh history. The book's five chapters contain a wealth of statistical and analytical material which should prove indispensable to students of modern Welsh politics and history. The book opens with a bald alphabetical listing of all Welsh M.P.'s since 1800 and is followed by a second chapter devoted to the history of Welsh constituencies. Here the authors present a succinct over- view of such subjects as the rules of parliamentary competition for each major period, the chief characteristics of each constituency and an outline of the prominent political activists or leading families which represented each seat in times past. The election results (1800-1979) are detailed according to the following criteria, con- stituency name, electorate, percentage turnout, candidates, party affiliation, votes cast, majority gained and the percentage vote gained by each candidate. A most pleasing feature of this section are the well produced colour print maps depicting each election result and easing inter-electoral comparisons. In the third chapter we move to specific features of representation, viz the number of electors at each general election, the number of candidates and votes cast and most importantly the frequency and precipitating causes for by-elections, 1832-1979. Chapter four presents a summary of the social composition of Welsh represent- ation at selected elections and an outline biography of M.P.'s elect- ed at these elections. I found this chapter most informative, as it gave human interest to the participants and stopped the book from being a mere list of, albeit very comprehensive, statistics. Thus we can for example, examine the educational and occupational back- ground of M.P.'s and discover that whilst only three of the thirty two members in the 1832 election were not landowners, by 1945 the overwhelming majority of Welsh members were either miner's agents, teachers or barristers. Interestingly, the only election when three female candidates were successful was back in 1950 and we had to wait for European elections in June 1979 to witness a recent success for female candidates (Beata Brookes for North Wales and Ann Clwyd for Mid & West Wales).