 The only party to have returned an MP for this constituency was the Conservatives, who represented it for most of the seat's existence.The exception was the period from 1951 to 1959, when William Morrison, first elected as a Conservative, became the Speaker of the House of Commons, a role in which the incumbent is traditionally unaffiliated to a party.The seat centred on the towns of Cirencester and Tewkesbury, covering much of the Cotswolds, a picturesque rolling landscape designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in 1966.