Winston Churchill lost his seat of Dundee in the 1922 general election as a National Liberal follower of David Lloyd George. The election was the only time a challenger standing as a prohibitionist was elected as an MP in the UK.
Dundee was a two member constituency at this point. Leading into 1922 there were two MPs, Churchill and the Labour (but in 1918 Unionist supported) Member of Parliament, Alexander Wilkie, who retired in 1922.
Churchill had held the seat since a by-election in 1908 and had easily won the constituency in the previous general election in 1918, topping the poll in a seat that he had called "a seat for life" in 1908 due to its status as a Liberal safe seat. [1]
In his annual constituency visit the year before Churchill noticed a much more hostile atmosphere than before with his agent worried about the progress of the Labour Party in Dundee and the Lord Provost of Dundee refusing to endorse his big set piece speech. [2]
As well as Churchill another National Liberal candidate David McDonald, who owned a local engineering company, ran. [3] He was a popular local candidate who eventually polled higher than Churchill and had been reported as saying that he would have been promised more votes only if he had "dropped Mr Churchill". [4]
Robert Pilkington was nominated to oppose Winston Churchill by a rebel group of Asquithian Liberals including Garnet Wilson. [5] His campaign fell flat after reassurances from Churchill quietened the local Liberals and in the 1923 he won the seat of Keighley in West Yorkshire.
Edwin Scrymgeour was a preacher and a councillor on Dundee City Council and had stood at every Parliamentary election in Dundee since the 1908 Dundee by-election. In Parliament, on issues other than prohibition, Scrymgeour generally supported the Labour Party. He was a popular figure and around 5,000 voters only voted for him, not giving their second vote to another candidate. [6]
E. D. Morel was a Labour Party candidate with few previous links to Dundee. He was an ex radical Liberal who had formed the Congo Reform Association and had been prominent in the pacifist inclined Union of Democratic Control during the First World War eventually leading to involvement with the Labour Party in 1918.
Willie Gallacher was a trade unionist and very early Communist candidate who would later represent West Fife and be the last Communist MP.
The campaign got off to a poor start for Churchill due to an attack of appendicitis and physical weakness. [7]
Churchill was also opposed by both the Dundee newspapers, both owned by the anti coalition Conservative D C Thomson, and Churchill was so frustrated with the press opposition that he threatened the proprietor with setting up his own paper. [8]
Scrymgeour had attracted the crucial support of John Sime who led the very strong locally based Dundee and District Union of Jute and Flax Workers.
Despite not being opposed by any Conservative candidate Churchill was defeated by the sole Labour candidate E. D. Morel and Scrymgeour, the only MP ever to be elected for the Scottish Prohibition Party. [9] Morel was considerably to the left of Wilkie, his Labour predecessor.
Although this was the second election for the Dundee seat held with universal male suffrage and (limited) female suffrage under the Representation of the People Act 1918, Churchill was to partially blame this for his defeat saying "The great extensions of the franchise fundamentally altered the political character of Dundee ... and great numbers of very poor women and mill girls, streamed to the poll during the last two hours of the voting." [10] Dundee now had a majority female electorate and this has been seen by later observers as a contributing factor to Churchill's defeat. [11]
Morel regarded Churchill as a warmonger and took pride in having defeated him: "I look upon Churchill as such a personal force for evil that I would take up the fight against him with a whole heart". [12]
Churchill later wrote that he was "without an office, without a seat, without a party, and without an appendix", [13] although he became one of 50 Companions of Honour named in Lloyd George's 1922 Dissolution Honours list. [14]
After the 1923 general election was called, seven Liberal associations asked Churchill to stand as their candidate, and he selected Leicester West, but he did not win the seat. [15] A Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald took power. Churchill had hoped they would be defeated by a Conservative-Liberal coalition. [16] He strongly opposed the MacDonald government's decision to loan money to Soviet Russia and feared the signing of an Anglo-Soviet Treaty. [17]
On 19 March 1924, alienated by Liberal support for Labour, Churchill stood as an independent anti-socialist "Constitutionalist" candidate in the Westminster Abbey by-election but was defeated. [18] In May, he addressed a Conservative meeting in Liverpool and declared that there was no longer a place for the Liberal Party in British politics. He said that Liberals must back the Conservatives to stop Labour and ensure "the successful defeat of socialism". [19] In July, he agreed with Conservative leader Stanley Baldwin that he would be selected as a Conservative candidate in the next general election, which was held on 29 October. Churchill stood at Epping, but he still described himself as a "Constitutionalist". [20] The Conservatives were victorious and Baldwin formed the new government. Although Churchill had no background in finance or economics, Baldwin appointed him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. [21]
This was also a shift in Dundee's political history with one historian saying "1922 marked the final moment of the shift from a position of Whig/Liberal dominance, which had endured since the 1832 Reform Act, to a Labour predominance which was to last most of the twentieth century." [22] Within a Scottish context this was seen as a particularly stark reversal for the National Liberals who supported Lloyd George, with Churchill securing the second highest proportion of the vote for a National Liberal candidate in Scotland in 1918 but receiving the second lowest in 1922. [23]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scottish Prohibition | Edwin Scrymgeour | 32,578 | 27.6 | +12.5 | |
| Labour | E. D. Morel | 30,292 | 25.6 | -10.5 | |
| National Liberal | David Johnstone MacDonald | 22,244 | 18.8 | N/A | |
| National Liberal | Winston Churchill | 20,466 | 17.3 | -20.2 | |
| Liberal | Robert Pilkington | 6,681 | 5.7 | N/A | |
| Communist | Willie Gallacher | 5,906 | 5.0 | New | |
| Majority | 10,334 | 8.8 | N/A | ||
| Majority | 8,048 | 6.8 | -14.2 | ||
| Turnout | 118,167 | 80.5 | +33.9 | ||
| Scottish Prohibition gain from National Liberal | Swing | ||||
| Labour hold | Swing | ||||
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies. Ideologically an adherent to economic liberalism and imperialism, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
Edwin Scrymgeour was a British politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dundee in Scotland. He is the only person ever elected to the House of Commons on a prohibitionist ticket, as the candidate of the Scottish Prohibition Party. He was affectionately known as Neddy Scrymgeour.
The 1945 United Kingdom general election was a national election held on Thursday 5 July 1945, but polling in some constituencies was delayed by some days, and the counting of votes was delayed until 26 July to provide time for overseas votes to be brought to Britain. The governing Conservative Party sought to maintain its position in Parliament but faced challenges from public opinion about the future of the United Kingdom in the post-war period. Prime Minister Winston Churchill proposed to call for a general election in Parliament, which passed with a majority vote less than two months after the conclusion of the Second World War in Europe.
The 1922 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. It was won by the Conservative Party, led by Prime Minister Andrew Bonar Law, which gained an overall majority over the Labour Party, led by J. R. Clynes, and a divided Liberal Party.
The Scottish Prohibition Party was a minor Scottish political party which advocated alcohol prohibition.
Dundee was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1832 to 1950, when it was split into Dundee East and Dundee West.
Parliamentary by-elections in the United Kingdom occur when a Member of Parliament (MP) vacates a House of Commons seat during the course of a parliament.
The 1924 Dundee by-election was a by-election held on 22 December 1924 for the British House of Commons constituency of Dundee, in Scotland. It was won by the Labour Party candidate, Thomas Johnston.
This article documents the career of Winston Churchill in Parliament from its beginning in 1900 to the start of his term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in World War II.
The 1924 Westminster Abbey by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 19 March 1924 for the British House of Commons constituency of Westminster Abbey in London. It was notable for the challenge of Winston Churchill to the party system.
John Leng Sturrock was a Scottish newspaper publisher and Liberal politician.
Alexander Wilkie CH was a Labour Party politician in Scotland, best known for his service as a Member of Parliament for Dundee. Along with the Dundonian George Nicoll Barnes, Wilkie was one of the first-ever Labour MPs elected in Scotland.
The National Liberal Party was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923. It was created as a formal party organisation for those Liberals, led by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who supported the Coalition Government (1918–22) and subsequently a revival of the Coalition, after it ceased holding office. It was officially a breakaway from the Liberal Party. The National Liberals ceased to exist in 1923 when Lloyd George agreed to a merger with the Liberal Party.
The Dundee by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 9 May 1908. The constituency returned two Members of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.
The 1917 Dundee by-election was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Dundee in the county of Angus held on 30 July 1917.
The 1923 Whitechapel and St Georges by-election was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Whitechapel and St Georges on 8 February 1923.
The early life of Winston Churchill covers the period from his birth on 30 November 1874 to 31 May 1904 when he formally crossed the floor of the House of Commons, defecting from the Conservative Party to sit as a member of the Liberal Party.
Winston Churchill was first elected to the UK Parliament at the 1900 general election as one of two Conservative Party members representing the Oldham constituency. He took his seat in the House of Commons in February 1901 but soon became critical of the Conservative government on a number of issues. On 31 May 1904, he formally crossed the floor of the Commons to join the opposition Liberals, remaining a party member until March 1924.
Winston Churchill retained his UK Parliamentary seat at the 1929 general election as member for Epping, but the Conservative Party was defeated and, with Ramsay MacDonald forming his second Labour government, Churchill was out of office and would remain so until the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939. This period of his life has been dubbed his "wilderness years", but he was extremely active politically as the main opponent of the government's policy of appeasement in the face of increasing German, Italian and Japanese militarism.
In 20th century politics, Winston Churchill (1874–1965) was one of the world's most influential and significant figures. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led the country to victory in the Second World War, and again from 1951 to 1955. Apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, he was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, he was for most of his career a member of the Conservative Party, and its leader from 1940 to 1955. He was a member of the Liberal Party from 1904 to 1924.
