Its namesake, a seat of about half the physical size of the above, took up a north-west side of the Severn estuary similar to the Forest of Dean, and came into being for the 1950 general election.

1832–1885: The Hundreds of Berkeley, Thornbury, Langley and Swineshead, Grumbald's Ash, Pucklechurch, Lancaster Duchy, Botloe, St Briavel's, Westbury, and Bledisloe, and the parts of the Hundreds of Henbury and Barton Regis that are not included in the limits of the City of Bristol.

This was where the hustings were put up and electors voted (by spoken declaration in public, before the secret ballot was introduced in 1872).

There were no electors qualified to vote in the western division, because they were freehold owners of land in a parliamentary borough.

The constituency in this period was a smaller part of the county of Gloucestershire than its nineteenth century namesake.