Whitby's shipbuilding industry had been in decline even before the new borough was established, and by 1885 a separate MP for the town could no longer be justified. However, when the borough was abolished the county constituency which absorbed it was also named Whitby (strictly, "the Whitby Division of the North Riding of Yorkshire"): it contained all the easternmost part of the Riding apart from Scarborough (which remained a separate borough), stretching south-west to Pickering which was the only other town in the constituency.