Psephology series,part 3: Remembering F.W.S.Craig

This month marks 30 years since the tragic and untimely death of F(rederick) W(alter) S(cott) Craig, who can be regarded as the first British psephologist.

His reference books about election results have been an inspiration to me and continue to be. His compilation of election results, along with details of independent candidates, have provided fascinating insights into Britain's political history. What is more, his books were able to cover a period of 151 years, from the inception of the Great Reform Act of 1832 right up to 1983 after which extensive boundary changes occurred due to constituencies from that period using new local government boundaries.

Much of his reporting inspired the works of successor psephologists like David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh, famous for their works on British general elections albeit told in a storylike way as well as in a statistically analytical way. Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher have continued his work to this day. Whilst a very specialist subject, psephology is a very important subject in the field of political science for analysing how election results came about and why we voted the way we did at particular moments in time. And for the record, it relies on more than an ability to look at results-connections must be found between them.


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