Bishop Auckland by-election, 1929

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The Bishop Auckland by-election, 1929 was a parliamentary by-election held on 7 February 1929 for the British House of Commons constituency of Bishop Auckland in County Durham.

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

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.

Bishop Auckland (UK Parliament constituency) Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom

Bishop Auckland is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2005 by Helen Goodman of the Labour Party.

Contents

The seat had become vacant on 22 December 1928 when the constituency's Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Ben Spoor had died aged 50. He had been elected for the previously Liberal-held seat at the 1918 general election, and held it through three further general elections. [1]

The Labour Party is a centre-left political party in the United Kingdom which 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.

Ben Spoor British politician

Benjamin Charles Spoor was a British Labour Party politician. He took a particular interest in India.

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.

Candidates

Spoor had planned to retire at the next general election, and the Bishop Auckland Constituency Labour Party had selected Hugh Dalton as its prospective parliamentary candidate. However, Dalton was already MP for the then-marginal Peckham constituency in South London, and had sought a safer seat. He would have had to resign his Peckham seat to stand in Bishop Auckland. To add to the complications, even he had been minded to do that, a further complication was that the prospective Labour candidate for Peckham was John Beckett, the sitting MP for Gateshead. [2]

A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular UK parliamentary constituency in England and Wales. In Scotland, CLP boundaries align with constituencies of the Scottish Parliament. The Labour Party in Northern Ireland has, since February 2009, been organised as a province-wide constituency Labour Party which is yet to contest elections.

Hugh Dalton Welsh politician and British MP

Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton, was a British Labour Party economist and politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947. He shaped Labour Party foreign policy in the 1930s, opposing pacifism and promoting rearmament against the German threat, and strongly opposed the appeasement policy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938. Dalton served in Winston Churchill's wartime coalition cabinet; after the Dunkirk evacuation he was Minister of Economic Warfare, and established the Special Operations Executive. As Chancellor, he pushed his policy of cheap money too hard, and mishandled the sterling crisis of 1947. His political position was already in jeopardy in 1947, when, he, seemingly inadvertently, revealed a sentence of the budget to a reporter minutes before delivering his budget speech. Prime Minister Clement Attlee accepted his resignation; Dalton later returned to the cabinet in relatively minor positions.

Prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) is a term used in British politics to refer to the candidates selected by political parties to fight individual Westminster constituencies in advance of a general election.

To avoid triggering two further by-elections, a Labour candidate was needed who would agree to stand down at the next general election. The seventy members of Bishop Auckland Constituency Labour Party's general committee unanimously chose Hugh Dalton's wife Ruth, because she could be relied on to resign in favour of her husband as soon as Parliament was dissolved; no other candidate was even considered. [2]

Florence Ruth Dalton, before her marriage Ruth Hamilton Fox and later known as Ruth, Lady Dalton, was a British Labour Party politician. A long serving member of the London County Council, she also holds the record for the shortest-serving female Member of Parliament (MP).

The Liberal Party candidate was Aaron Curry, who had contested Houghton-le-Spring at the 1923 and 1924 general elections, and who had also been unsuccessful at the Wallsend by-election in 1926. The Conservative Party, which had not contested Bishop Auckland in 1924, selected as its candidate H. Thompson, who had not previously contested a Parliamentary election.

Houghton-le-Spring (UK Parliament constituency) former UK Parliament constituency

Houghton-le-Spring was a county constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1885 to 1983.

Result

On a slightly reduced turnout, Ruth Dalton held the seat for Labour, becoming the thirteenth woman elected to the House of Commons. [3] Her share of the vote was slightly increased over Spoor's 1924 result, but a majority greatly increased by the division of the non-Labour vote between two candidates.

Aftermath

Ruth Dalton stood down as agreed at the general election in May 1929, having been the shortest-serving woman MP. Her 92 days in office remains an unbeaten record, but it was equalled 45 years later by Margo McDonald, the Scottish National Party MP for Glasgow Govan from 8 November 1973 to 8 February 1974. [4] She did not stand for Parliament again. [1]

Her husband Hugh won the seat at the 1929 election, with Curry again in second place, but when Labour split two years later and Ramsay MacDonald formed a National Government, Curry took the seat at the 1931 general election. Dalton regained the seat in 1935, and held it until he stood down in 1959.

Votes

Bishop Auckland by-election, 7 February 1929 [1]
PartyCandidateVotes%±
Labour Ruth Dalton 14,797 57.1 +2.0
Liberal Aaron Curry 7,725 29.9−15.0
Conservative Herbert Thompson 3,357 13.0 N/A
Majority 7,072 27.2 +17.0
Turnout 25,879 74.4−6.5
Labour hold Swing +8.5

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918-1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN   0-900178-06-X.
  2. 1 2 "Maiden speech of Helen Goodman MP". Hansard . 25 May 2005. pp. Column 781–782. Retrieved 15 August 2007.
  3. ↑ Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics: Women MPs Elected 1918-1929
  4. ↑ Centre for Advancement of Women in Politics: Records

See also

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