Aberavon (constituency)

Aberavon is a parliamentary constituency of south Wales, on the right bank of the River Afan, near its mouth in Swansea Bay, the original village of Aberavon or Aberafan nowadays being a district of Port Talbot. The valley of the Afan was 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.

Results from last two general elections

2001 UK general election

1997 UK general election