1906 Huddersfield by-election

The Huddersfield by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 28 November 1906.[1] The constituency returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

1906 Huddersfield by-election
28 November 1906
 
Candidate Sherwell Williams Fraser
Party Liberal Labour Conservative
Popular vote 5,762 5,422 4,844
Percentage 36.0% 33.8% 30.2%
MP before election

Sir James Woodhouse
Liberal

 Subsequent MP

Arthur Sherwell
Liberal

Vacancy

Sir James Woodhouse had been Liberal MP here since the 1895 general election. He resigned upon his appointment as the Rail and Canal Traffic Commissioner.

Electoral history

The seat had been Liberal since Woodhouse re-gained it in 1895. It had been a marginal seat, but Woodhouse had won with a bit to spare in 1895 and 1900. He narrowly held the seat at the last election after the intervention of a Labour candidate.

Woodhouse
General election 1906 Huddersfield[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal James Woodhouse 6,302 38.2 −15.4
Labour Repr. Cmte. T. Russell Williams 5,813 35.2 New
Conservative John Foster Fraser 4,391 26.6 −19.8
Majority 489 3.0 −4.2
Turnout 16,506 94.0 +6.2
Registered electors 17,568
Liberal hold Swing +2.2

Candidates

The local Liberal Association selected the 43-year-old temperance campaigner Arthur Sherwell to defend the seat. The Conservatives retained the 38-year-old journalist John Foster Fraser as their candidate. The 37-year-old Thomas Russell Williams, who had stood as a candidate of the Labour Representation Committee, at the general election also stood again but this time as the candidate of the Labour Party. Although raised in Huddersfield, he worked as a mill manager in Keighley.[3]

Campaign

Polling day was fixed for 28 November 1906. The Conservative and Labour challengers started with an advantage, as their names were known from having contested the constituency nine months earlier. The Liberals had received a setback, losing Cockermouth to the Conservatives in a by-election three months earlier. Liberal candidates in other by-elections had also seen their vote share fall from the party's general election high point. In Huddersfield, since the general election, the Liberal association had undergone reorganisation and had substantially increased its membership. Williams, the Labour candidate, was regarded as a quasi-Marxist socialist and struggled to relate his stances to local trade unionists, who wanted firm policy commitments from him.[3] Sherwell, the Liberal candidate, supported giving women the vote. However, the Women's Social and Political Union set up a local campaign office to campaign against him.[4]

Result

The Liberals held the seat with a slightly reduced majority.

Huddersfield by-election, 1906[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Arthur Sherwell 5,762 36.0 -2.2
Labour T. Russell Williams 5,422 33.8 -1.4
Conservative John Foster Fraser 4,844 30.2 +3.6
Majority 340 2.2 -0.8
Turnout 16,028 91.2 -2.8
Liberal hold Swing -0.4

Aftermath

The Labour Party decided that after two contests, Williams was not a good candidate and so it changed him for another for the next election, only to see their share of the vote drop further. The Huddersfield Liberals stifled the growth of the Labour Party up to the First World War.[3]

General election January 1910: Huddersfield[2]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Arthur Sherwell 7,158 39.8 +3.8
Labour Harry Snell 5,686 31.6 −2.2
Conservative Harold Smith 5,153 28.6 -1.6
Majority 1,472 8.2 +5.2
Turnout 17,997 94.6 +0.6
Registered electors 19,021
Liberal hold Swing +2.6

References
  1. Craig, F.W.S. (1987). Chronology of British Parliamentary By-elections 1833–1987. Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 100.
  2. British parliamentary election results, 1885-1918, F. W. S. Craig
  3. Liberalism and the Rise of Labour 1890-1918 by Keith Laybourn, Jack Reynolds, Routledge, 1984
  4. The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press by Sarah Pedersen, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017
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