Antrim by-election, 1885

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The Antrim by-election, 1885 was a by-election held on Thursday 21 May 1885 for the British House of Commons constituency of Antrim in present-day Northern Ireland.

United Kingdom constituencies electoral area in the UK (do not use in P31; use subclasses of this instead)

In the United Kingdom (UK), each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elect one member to a parliament or assembly, with the exception of European Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly constituencies which are multi member constituencies.

Antrim is a former UK Parliament constituency in Ireland. It was a two-member constituency and existed in two periods, 1801–1885 and 1922–1950.

Northern Ireland Part of the United Kingdom lying in the north-east of the island of Ireland, created 1921

Northern Ireland is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the UK's population. Established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the Northern Ireland Assembly holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the British government. Northern Ireland co-operates with the Republic of Ireland in some areas, and the Agreement granted the Republic the ability to "put forward views and proposals" with "determined efforts to resolve disagreements between the two governments".

Contents

Vacancy

The by-election was caused by the death, at the age of only 43, of the sitting Conservativel MP James Chaine on 4 May 1885. [1] Chaine had been one of the MPs for the constituency since 1874. [2]

Conservative Party (UK) Political party in the United Kingdom

The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom. Presently led by Theresa May, it has been the governing party since 2010. It presently has 314 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, 249 members of the House of Lords, and 18 members of the European Parliament. It also has 31 Members of the Scottish Parliament, 12 members of the Welsh Assembly, eight members of the London Assembly and 9,008 local councillors. One of the major parties of UK politics, it has formed the government on 45 occasions, more than any other party.

James Chaine was an Irish shipping businessman and a Conservative Party politician from County Antrim in Ulster.

Candidates

The Conservatives selected Robert Torrens O'Neill as their candidate. [3] O'Neill, who was 40 years old at the time of the by-election, was the third son of Lord O'Neill and thus a member of the prominent Irish Chichester family headed by the Marquess of Donegall. [4]

Hon. Robert Torrens O'Neill, was an Irish Conservative, and later Irish Unionist politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1910.

William ONeill, 1st Baron ONeill Anglo-Irish peer, cleric and composer

Reverend William O'Neill, 1st Baron O'Neill was an Anglo-Irish hereditary peer, clergyman and musical composer. Born William Chichester, he changed his surname to O'Neill in 1855.

Marquess of Donegall

Marquess of Donegall is a title in the Peerage of Ireland held by the head of the Chichester family, originally from Devon, England. Sir John Chichester sat as a Member of Parliament and was High Sheriff of Devon in 1557. One of his sons, Sir Arthur Chichester, was Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1604 to 1614. In 1613, he was raised to the Peerage of Ireland as Baron Chichester, of Belfast in County Antrim. He died childless in 1625 when the barony became extinct.

The Liberals chose William Pirrie Sinclair, a 38-year-old, Belfast born merchant and ship owner with business interests in Glasgow, Liverpool and elsewhere. [5]

William Pirrie Sinclair was a politician in the United Kingdom who was twice elected to the House of Commons.

Glasgow City and council area in Scotland

Glasgow is the most populous city in Scotland, and the third most populous city in the United Kingdom, as of the 2017 estimated city population of 621,020. Historically part of Lanarkshire, the city now forms the Glasgow City council area, one of the 32 council areas of Scotland; the local authority is Glasgow City Council. Glasgow is situated on the River Clyde in the country's West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as "Glaswegians" or "Weegies". It is the fourth most visited city in the UK. Glasgow is also known for the Glasgow patter, a distinct dialect of the Scots language that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city.

The campaign

O'Neill announced his candidature with the issue of an address to the electors of Antrim, calling himself a Constitutional candidate. He said he would try to advance the interests of the tenant farmers and would support measures to enable them to buy their farms on easy terms. He also pledged strenuously to oppose the admission of atheists to Parliament. [6]

A tenant farmer is one who resides on land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management, while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying amounts of capital and management. Depending on the contract, tenants can make payments to the owner either of a fixed portion of the product, in cash or in a combination. The rights the tenant has over the land, the form, and measure of the payment varies across systems. In some systems, the tenant could be evicted at whim ; in others, the landowner and tenant sign a contract for a fixed number of years. In most developed countries today, at least some restrictions are placed on the rights of landlords to evict tenants under normal circumstances.

Sinclair had two main campaigning themes. He favoured some reform of Irish government but opposed Home Rule. He also took a stand against the policies of his own government in opposing the case for coercion laws, for example those which allowed imprisonment without trial or rent boycotts and those giving government officers the power to change trial venues or appoint special juries. [7]

Irish Home Rule movement movement that campaigned for self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1870 to the end of World War I.

The Coercion Acts, formally Protection of Person and Property Acts were British Acts of Parliament to respond with force to popular discontent and disorder.

Internment imprisonment or confinement of groups of people without trial

Internment is the imprisonment of people, commonly in large groups, without charges or intent to file charges, and thus no trial. The term is especially used for the confinement "of enemy citizens in wartime or of terrorism suspects". Thus, while it can simply mean imprisonment, it tends to refer to preventive confinement, rather than confinement after having been convicted of some crime. Use of these terms is subject to debate and political sensitivities.

Result

Sinclair gained the seat from the Tories with a majority of 139 votes. This seemed to come as something of a surprise to both sides as the Conservatives had been reported as confident and the Liberals rather despondent. [8] The defeat was taken as a bad omen for the Conservatives in view of the forthcoming general election. One commentator put forward the possible explanation that the Conservatives had not taken the election as seriously as they should, given that the general election would soon be upon them. There was a reduced turnout over the previous general election in 1880 and it was felt that the voters too were underwhelmed by the prospect of going to the polls twice in quick succession. [9] The Liberals believed that their candidates stand on Coercion was an important factor. Thomas Alexander Dickson Liberal MP for Tyrone said he had spoken at one of Sinclair's campaign meetings and had been enthusiastically received on this issue. [10] The Times newspaper was sceptical on this as an explanation, which, it reported, could have been down to numerous factors; but it did point to the Coercion question as one which could prove fruitful for the Irish Party at the forthcoming general election and problematic for the Liberals. [11] This certainly seemed to prove true. The Liberals failed to win any seat in what is today Northern Ireland at the 1885 general election, while the Conservatives won sixteen and the Nationalists eight. One psephologist has noted that the fact that the Liberal Party was not in a majority in the House of Commons was caused by the activities of the Irish Nationalists. Charles Stewart Parnell had advised his supporters to vote Conservative if there were no Irish Nationalist candidates running and that it is almost certain the Nationalists caused the loss of at least five, or perhaps seven or more Liberal seats. [12]

The Antrim seat itself was abolished for the 1885 election and divided into four single member divisions. Sinclair stood in North Antrim in a three-cornered contest but was not successful. [13] The defeated O'Neil was luckier. He tried his hand in the new seat of Mid Antrim where he beat Sinclair's by-election helper Thomas Dickson. [14]

Sinclair did however return to the House of Commons at the 1886 general election as Liberal Unionist Party member for Falkirk Burghs in the central Scottish Lowlands. [15]

Votes

Antrim by-election, 21 May 1885
PartyCandidateVotes%±
Liberal William Pirrie Sinclair 3,971
Conservative Robert Torrens O'Neill 3,832
Majority 139
Liberal gain from Conservative Swing

See also

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References

  1. ↑ The Times, 5 May 1885 p10
  2. ↑ Vincent and Stenton (eds.), McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book of Election Results 1832–1918; Harvester Press, 1971 p6 of Part I
  3. ↑ The Times, 11 May 1885 p7
  4. ↑ Who was Who, OUP online 2007
  5. ↑ The Times, 8 July 1886 p10
  6. ↑ The Times, 11 May 1885 p7
  7. ↑ Stephen Ball (ed.), Dublin Castle and the First Home Rule Crisis: The Political Journal of Sir George Fottrell, 1884–1887; Royal Historical Society, 2008 p97 & n and 98
  8. ↑ The Times, 23 May 1885 p12
  9. ↑ The Times, 23 May 1885 p12
  10. ↑ Stephen Ball (ed.), Dublin Castle and the First Home Rule Crisis: The Political Journal of Sir George Fottrell, 1884–1887; Royal Historical Society, 2008 p97
  11. ↑ The Times, 23 May 1885 p11
  12. ↑ Michael Kinnear, The British Voter: An Atlas and Survey since 1885; Cornell University Press, 1968 p13
  13. ↑ Vincent and Stenton (eds.), McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book of Election Results 1832–1918; Harvester Press, 1971 p3 of Part II
  14. ↑ Vincent and Stenton (eds.), McCalmont's Parliamentary Poll Book of Election Results 1832–1918; Harvester Press, 1971 p4 of Part II
  15. ↑ F W S Craig, British Parliamentary Election Results 1885–1918; Macmillan, 1974 p502
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