page_title: West Carmarthenshire (UK Parliament constituency)
section_title: 1885-88
hierarchical_section_title: West Carmarthenshire (UK Parliament constituency) / History / 1885-88
caption_attribution_description: Frederick Campbell, 3rd Earl Cawdor (1847-1911)
context_page_description: West Carmarthenshire was a parliamentary constituency in Wales which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
  It was created for the 1885 general election, when the old two-member Carmarthenshire constituency was divided into two new single-member seats: East Carmarthenshire and West Carmarthenshire, both of which were in turn abolished for the 1918 general election.
context_section_description: At the first election in 1885, the two sitting members for the former constituency of  Carmarthenshire faced each other. The Conservative candidate, Viscount Emlyn, although most of his family property lay in the eastern part of the county, calculated that his chances there would be negligible  given the growing industrial population which had been a key factor in the triumph of the Liberal candidate, Edward Sartoris at the 1868 general election. He was opposed by the Liberal W.R.H. Powell, himself a former Conservative supporter who had first declared his support for the Liberals at the 1874 election. Powell now proclaimed that he had a duty to the Liberal cause to oppose Emlyn.
  It was reported that the Conservatives were confident of their chances in the new West Carmarthenshire constituency, on the grounds that it was largely an agricultural division. However, the electorate had more than doubled in the county, and the 1885 electorate in the Western Division alone exceeded that of the combined county seat in 1880. However, the overwhelmingly nonconformist character of the constituency was regarded as a distinct advantage to the Liberal candidate, and the influence of the chapels predicted to be decisive in view of their direct influence over rural agricultural communities.
  After a vigorous contest, Powell won a decisive victory.
  By the next election the following year, Emlyn had retired from the fray, and Powell increased his majority significantly.
caption: Emlyn
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