1904 Rossendale by-election

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The Rossendale by-election, 1904 was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Rossendale in Lancashire on 15 March 1904.

By-elections, also spelled bye-elections, are used to fill elected offices that have become vacant between general elections.

Rossendale (UK Parliament constituency) Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom

Rossendale was a parliamentary constituency in the Lancashire, England. Created in 1885, it elected one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first-past-the-post voting system. When created it comprised the districts of Rawtenstall, Bacup, and Haslingden; Ramsbottom district was added to the constituency in 1950.

Lancashire County of England

Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. The administrative centre is Preston. The county has a population of 1,449,300 and an area of 1,189 square miles (3,080 km2). People from Lancashire are known as Lancastrians.

Contents

Vacancy

The by-election was caused by the resignation of the sitting Liberal MP, Sir William Mather. Mather, who was 66 years old in 1904, had been Liberal MP for Salford and Manchester Gorton before winning Rossendale at a by-election in 1900. He had already announced that he would not stand at the next general election believing it would be held earlier in the Parliament elected at the 1900 general election owing to the weakness of the Conservative government. The government determined to hang on however and Mather decided to resign. He chose the traditional route of applying for the Chiltern Hundreds. [1]

Liberal Party (UK) political party of the United Kingdom, 1859–1988

The Liberal Party was one of the two major parties in the United Kingdom with the opposing Conservative Party in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The party arose from an alliance of Whigs and free trade Peelites and Radicals favourable to the ideals of the American and French Revolutions in the 1850s. By the end of the 19th century, it had formed four governments under William Gladstone. Despite being divided over the issue of Irish Home Rule, the party returned to government in 1905 and then won a landslide victory in the following year's general election.

William Mather British politician

Sir William Mather was a British industrialist and Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1885 and 1904.

Salford (UK Parliament constituency) Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, 1997-2010

Salford was a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. The borough constituency dated from 1997 and was abolished in 2010, replaced by Salford and Eccles.

Candidates

Lewis Harcourt Lewis Viscount Harcourt by Solomon J Solomon.jpg
Lewis Harcourt

Liberals

The Rossendale Liberals had already selected as their candidate Lewis Harcourt in anticipation of Mather’s standing down. [2]

Lewis Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt British politician

Lewis Vernon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, PC was a British Liberal Party politician who held the Cabinet post of Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1910 to 1915. Lord Harcourt's nickname was "Loulou".

Unionists

The local Conservatives had not expected a by-election and did not have a candidate in the field. Rossendale was a traditionally Liberal seat. It had been held by the Liberals since its creation for the 1885 general election with only the interlude of 1886-1892 when it was represented by the former Liberal MP the Marquess of Hartington having switched to the Liberal Unionists. The Unionists were forced to look as far abroad as Wimbledon for a candidate, approaching Colonel T Mitchell who was the brother of the Tory MP for Burnley but he declined to stand. [3] They next turned to Mr John Whittaker, a cotton trader from Wilpshire, near Blackburn but he too declined to fight the seat. In the event the Conservatives were unable to find anyone willing to contest a Liberal stronghold, citing the serious state of the Lancashire cotton industry as the reason. [4]

1885 United Kingdom general election nationwide election to the House of Commons

The 1885 United Kingdom general election was held from 24 November to 18 December 1885. This was the first general election after an extension of the franchise and redistribution of seats. For the first time a majority of adult males could vote and most constituencies by law returned a single member to Parliament fulfilling one of the ideals of Chartism to provide direct single-member, single-electorate accountability. It saw the Liberals, led by William Ewart Gladstone, win the most seats, but not an overall majority. As the Irish Nationalists held the balance of power between them and the Conservatives who sat with an increasing number of allied Unionist MPs, this exacerbated divisions within the Liberals over Irish Home Rule and led to a Liberal split and another general election the following year.

Spencer Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire British statesman

Spencer Compton Cavendish, 8th Duke of Devonshire,, styled Lord Cavendish of Keighley between 1834 and 1858 and Marquess of Hartington between 1858 and 1891, was a British statesman. He has the distinction of having served as leader of three political parties: as Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Commons (1875–1880) and as of the Liberal Unionist Party (1886–1903) and of the Unionists in the House of Lords (1902–1903). He also declined to become Prime Minister on three occasions, not because he was not a serious politician but because the circumstances were never right.

The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain, the party formed a political alliance with the Conservative Party in opposition to Irish Home Rule. The two parties formed the ten-year-long coalition Unionist Government 1895–1905 but kept separate political funds and their own party organisations until a complete merger was agreed in May 1912.

Labour

The Labour Party considered putting up a candidate. They first approached Daniel Irving, a leading socialist from Burnley, but he said he was too busy working for Henry Hyndman another prominent Labour politician. [5] In the end, like the Conservatives, the Labour Party chose not to contest the by-election.

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The party's platform emphasises greater state intervention, social justice and strengthening workers' rights.

Burnley market town in Lancashire, England

Burnley is a town in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is 21 miles (34 km) north of Manchester and 20 miles (32 km) east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River Brun.

Henry Hyndman British politician

Henry Mayers Hyndman was an English writer and politician. Originally a conservative, he was converted to socialism by Marx’s Communist Manifesto, and launched Britain’s first left-wing political party, the Democratic Federation, later known as the Social Democratic Federation, in 1881. Although this body attracted radicals such as William Morris and George Lansbury, Hyndman was generally disliked as an authoritarian who could not unite his party. He was the first author to popularise Marx’s works in English.

Issues

It being an uncontested election, topical political issues were not subject to public debate. However, Harcourt did issue an election address in which he stated that his main concerns were taxation, Chinese labour in South Africa, education and temperance. He also confirmed his position as an out-and-out free trader. [6]

South Africa Republic in the southernmost part of Africa

South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline of Southern Africa stretching along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini (Swaziland); and it surrounds the enclaved country of Lesotho. South Africa is the largest country in Southern Africa and the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and, with over 57 million people, is the world's 24th-most populous nation. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Bantu ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different African languages, nine of which have official status. The remaining population consists of Africa's largest communities of European, Asian (Indian), and multiracial (Coloured) ancestry.

Temperance movement 19th- and 20th-century global social movement

The temperance movement is a social movement against the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote complete abstinence (teetotalism), with leaders emphasizing alcohol's negative effects on health, personality, and family life. Typically the movement promotes alcohol education as well as demands new laws against the selling of alcohols, or those regulating the availability of alcohol, or those completely prohibiting it. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the temperance movement became prominent in many countries, particularly English-speaking and Scandinavian ones, and it led to Prohibition in the United States from 1920 to 1933.

The result

Harcourt was returned unopposed. He held the seat until 1917 when he became a peer. In the ensuing by-election the seat was held for the Liberals by Sir John Henry Maden.

Rossendale by-election, 1904
PartyCandidateVotes%±
Liberal Lewis Harcourt UnopposedN/AN/A
Liberal hold Swing N/A

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References

  1. ↑ The Times, 9 March 1904 p10
  2. ↑ The Times, 13 February 1904 p12
  3. ↑ The Times, 10 March 1904 p5
  4. ↑ The Times, 15 March 1904 p8
  5. ↑ The Times, 24 February 1904 p14
  6. ↑ The Times, 10 March 1904 p5

See also

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