Rugby and Kenilworth is a most incongruous constituency. It's a mix of working-class Rugby and decidedly middle-class Kenilworth, towns which have shown decidedly different political preferences.
Industry in the seat is centred around Rugby, with its better communication links. GEC-Alsthom are big employers, as are Peugeot-Talbot whose main factory is in Ryton-on-Dunsmore. Dairy farming is widespread too, there are many rural communities as well as prosperous commuter towns and villages. High-Tory Dr. Thomas Arnold was the famous headmaster of Rugby School, where William Webb Ellis "first took up the ball in his arms and ran with it" to invent the game of rugby.
Kenilworth is most famous for its twelfth century castle, which has interesting parliamentary associations. Simon de Montfort’s son held it after his father’s death at the Battle of Evesham in 1265, before being starved out six months later. Nearly 400 years later, Cromwell gave it to Colonel Hawkesmoor and his regiment to meet their unpaid wages and they promptly tore down the walls to sell as building materials.
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