1909 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election
A by-election was held for the British House of Commons constituency of Sheffield Attercliffe on 4 May 1909.
Background
The election was caused by the resignation of J. Batty Langley, due to long-term ill health.[1] He had been the Liberal Party Member of Parliament for the seat since an 1894 by-election. He had been re-elected unopposed at the 1895 and 1900 UK general elections.[2] Arnold Muir Wilson, a local Conservative Party councillor and honorary consul for Serbia had contested the seat in 1906, taking 46.8% of the vote.[3][4]
Attercliffe, a district of north east Sheffield, was a strongly working class area, with much heavy industry. At the time of the election, there was high unemployment in the area.[5]
Candidates
The Liberal Party nominated Richard Cornthwaite Lambert. He had narrowly failed to win Sheffield Ecclesall at the 1906 election. As Wilson was out of the country, the Conservatives nominated a new candidate, Sydney Charles King-Farlow. A newcomer to politics, he was a barrister based in the south east of England.[6] Wilson objected to the decision to stand an outsider, and decided to stand as an independent candidate.[5] The Labour Party asked President of the Yorkshire Miners' Association Herbert Smith to stand, but he declined. Instead, they stood Joseph Pointer, Chair of Sheffield Trades Council and a local councillor. He was a member of the Independent Labour Party and the United Patternmakers Association, but both organisations initally refused to sponsor his candidacy, the Patternmakers finally agreeing on 20 April to finance him.[7]
Campaign
The campaign was short, but hard-fought. Lambert campaigned as "the People's Candidate", opposing taxes on food. Muir Wilson stood on a protectionist platform, under the slogan "Vote for the Tory Chicken!! Kill the London Cuckoo!!". King-Farlow promised "more work for Englishmen and less work for foreigners". Ramsay Macdonald, Kier Hardie and Arthur Henderson, among others, came to campaign for Pointer.[7]
The Women's Social and Political Union intervened in the election, with Emmeline Pankhurst speaking. The organisation was broadly sympathetic to the Labour Party, but all four candidates endorsed women's suffrage.[7]
Result
The result was announced on a large screen at Sheffield Town Hall, and a big crowd awaited the result of the contest.[7] With the Conservative vote split, Pointer was able to take enough votes from the Liberals to achieve a narrow victory, with the Liberals dropping from first to third place. With only 27.5% of the vote, this remains the lowest ever winning share in a single-member by-election. At the time, the possibility of winning a seat with such a low share of the vote was described by the Daily Chronicle as an "absurdity",[5] making the case for preferential voting.[1] The Labour gain, and the dramatic fall in the Liberal vote, encourage David Lloyd George to move the party to the left, and the next months saw a series of large Liberal victories in their safe seats.[8] On 22 May, Winston Churchill spoke in favour of the introduction of proportional representation, claiming that "the present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party... all they secure is fluke representation".[9]
Pointer held the seat until his death in 1914.[7] Lambert finally won a seat at Cricklade in 1910. Wilson died a few months after the by-election, without ever having returned to the UK. King-Farlow contested the seat again in January 1910, then stood in Hackney South in December, but was never elected, and instead became a judge in British East Africa.[6]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Labour | Joseph Pointer | 3,531 | 27.5 | N/A | |
| Conservative | Sydney Charles King-Farlow | 3,380 | 26.2 | −20.6 | |
| Liberal | Richard Cornthwaite Lambert | 3,175 | 24.6 | −28.6 | |
| Ind. Conservative | Arnold Muir Wilson | 2,803 | 21.7 | N/A | |
| Majority | 151 | 1.3 | −5.1 | ||
| Turnout | 77.3 | −1.9 | |||
| Labour gain from Liberal | Swing | N/A | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | J. Batty Langley | 6,523 | 53.2 | N/A | |
| Conservative | Arnold Muir Wilson | 5,736 | 46.8 | N/A | |
| Majority | 787 | 6.4 | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 79.2 | N/A | |||
| Liberal hold | Swing | N/A | |||
References
- ^ a b "Labour Candidate Returned", Evening Post, 6 May 1909
- ^ a b c F. W. S. Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918
- ^ J. H. Stainton, The Making of Sheffield 1865-1914
- ^ Slobodan G. Markovich, Perceptions of Serbia and the Balkans in the British Press, p.108
- ^ a b c "Labour wins a by-election", Feilding Star, 6 May 1909, p.3
- ^ a b The Colonial Office List (1949), p.538
- ^ a b c d e Sources for the Study of the election of Sheffield's first Labour Member of Parliament, 1909, Sheffield City Council
- ^ W. D. Rubinstein, Twentieth-century Britain: a political history, p.37
- ^ John H. Humphreys and A. B. Poland, Proportional Representation A Study In Methods Of Election, p.71