1918–1950: The Urban Districts of Desborough, Kettering, and Rothwell, the Rural Districts of Brixworth, Kettering, and Oxendon, and in the Rural District of Northampton the parishes of Great Billing, Little Billing, and Weston Favell. 1950–1974: The Municipal Borough of Kettering, the Urban Districts of Burton Latimer, Corby, Desborough, and Rothwell, and the Rural Districts of Brixworth and Kettering. 1974–1983: The Municipal Borough of Kettering, the Urban Districts of Burton Latimer, Corby, Desborough, and Rothwell, and the Rural District of Kettering. 1983–1997: The Borough of Kettering, and the District of Daventry wards of Boughton and Pitsford, Brixworth, Clipston, Moulton, and Overstone and Walgrave. 1997–2010: The Borough of Kettering, and the District of Daventry wards of Boughton and Pitsford, Brixworth, Clipston, Guilsborough, Moulton, Overstone and Walgrave, Spratton, and Welford. 2010–present: The Borough of Kettering. The constituency covers the major town of Kettering, the smaller towns of Desborough and Rothwell, the small town of Burton Latimer and rural settlements. A semi-rural seat, the preponderance of constituents live in the towns and a minority of the wards form a wide array of rural communities that have civil parish or hamlet status. The constituency created in 1918 included the generally Labour-majority industrial town of Corby until the 1983 general election, when Corby gained its own constituency. The Boundary Commission's Fifth Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies proposed an additional seat due to population growth in the county. Parliament approved its recommendations for 2010 which made way for the new constituency of South Northamptonshire therefore the constituency lost some wards in these boundary changes.
Constituency profile
Economically, it is predominantly middle-class, well within managerial/directorial commuter zones for London and the West Midlands. Industry continues in some sectors ranging from, for example, lingerie, food production, rigid containers, abattoirs, to the Weetabix factory in Burton Latimer, but the industrial activity of the area, as with the rest of the county, is reduced whereas the wider area's headline gross value added for the area per head has been mostly consistently higher, from £11,667 in 1997 in North Northamptonshire to £17,835. In 2005 The Guardian described it as:
Prior to boundary changes in 1918, at least the majority of modern-day Kettering Constituency lay within the Mid Northamptonshire constituency.
North Northamptonshire Constituency (1832-1885)
Prior to boundary changes in 1885, at least the majority of modern-day Kettering Constituency lay within the North Northamptonshire constituency, which elected two members to Parliament.
Note: The boundary changes to the seat for the 1983 election meant that this seat would have been won by the Conservatives in 1979, as parts of the seat were moved into the newly created seat of Corby which was notionally Labour on the new boundaries and thus saw William Homewood attempt to seek re-election there.
