It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.

The constituency was created for the 1885 general election, and abolished for the 1950 general election when it became part of the revived Bermondsey constituency.

The political parties had been making preparations for an election to take place and by July 1914, the following candidates had been selected; The constituency is portrayed in an episode (A Place in the World) of TV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs as the safe Docklands Labour seat of "Rotherhithe East" that is unsuccessfully contested by James Bellamy for the Conservatives in a by-election in 1920.

Location scenes were actually shot in Rotherhithe in January 1975 during the making of the episode.

(In real life through 1920 Rotherhithe was a Unionist seat.)