British Parliamentary Election Results, 1885-1973, with Socio-Economic Links to 1931 Census

An extensive relational database, developed for both teaching and research purposes over a period of some 25 years by Professor Stuart Ball and Dr Graham Smith in the History department at Leicester University, at first on an Ingres system and since 2001 on SQL Server. Its core is a near-comprehensive digital version of the standard compilation of British election results published by F. W. S. Craig. The transcription aims to be virtually complete, covering all general elections and by-elections with the exception only of Irish and university seats, and including full candidate details for each contest as well as the party results. The database began as part of the department's pioneering Computing for Historians programme, which from 1989 onwards introduced Leicester History undergraduates to digital research methods through a mandatory database element in the degree structure. In this context it proved to be a versatile basis for more than 120 student finals projects. As a research database it was significantly enhanced from 2008 with our development of a system for correlating parliamentary constituencies with the different geographical units used by the census (England and Wales) and hence constructing socio-economic constituency profiles, so opening up a line of research from which historians have in the past been deterred by the difficulty of mapping constituencies on to census areas. This innovative approach provided the basis for the electoral analyses in Professor Ball's award-winning book Portrait of a Party: The Conservative Party in Britain 1918-1945 (Oxford UP, 2013), making the database an important resource for anyone wishing to replicate or extend that research.<br>

该大型关系型数据库由莱斯特大学历史系的斯图尔特·鲍尔教授（Stuart Ball）与格雷厄姆·史密斯博士（Graham Smith）耗时约25年开发，用于教学与科研工作；早期部署于Ingres系统，2001年起迁移至SQL Server平台。其核心为F. W. S. 克雷格（F. W. S. Craig）编纂的标准英国选举结果汇编的近乎完整的数字化版本。该数据转录工作力求近乎完备，涵盖除爱尔兰选区与大学选区外的所有大选与补选数据，同时包含每场选举的完整候选人信息及政党选举结果。该数据库最初作为该系开创性的“面向历史学家的计算”（Computing for Historians）项目的一部分，自1989年起，该项目通过学位体系中的强制数据库课程模块，向莱斯特大学历史系本科生传授数字化研究方法。在此背景下，该数据库成为120余项学生期末课程项目的通用研究基础。作为科研数据库，该库自2008年起得到显著升级：我们开发了一套系统，可将议会选区与英格兰及威尔士人口普查使用的不同地理单元进行关联，进而构建选区社会经济特征概况，由此开辟了此前因难以将选区映射至普查区域而令历史学家望而却步的研究方向。这一创新方法为鲍尔教授的获奖著作《政党画像：1918-1945年英国保守党》（*Portrait of a Party: The Conservative Party in Britain 1918-1945*，Oxford UP，2013年）中的选举分析提供了核心支撑，也使该数据库成为所有希望复刻或拓展该项研究的学者的重要资源。