1928 Lancaster by-election

The Conservatives selected 40-year-old Herwald Ramsbotham. Ramsbotham was educated at Uppingham and University College, Oxford, had been called to the Bar in 1911 but entered a City export business.[2] He had also had a distinguished service career during World War One, being three times mentioned in despatches.[3] Although Ramsbotham now resided in Radlett in Hertfordshire,[4] he had strong connections with the Lancaster constituency. He had been the Unionist candidate there at the December 1910 general election when, although he lost, he had caused the Liberal majority in the seat to fall from 1,084 to just 134.[5]

The Liberals chose Robert Parkinson Tomlinson, a 46-year-old corn merchant from Poulton-le-Fylde and former parliamentary candidate in the Fylde constituency.[6] Tomlinson was seen as a local man as his home was just across the constituency border and was known for his religious work as a Wesleyan lay preacher across Lancashire.[7]

The Labour Party settled upon the Reverend David R Davies, a Congregational minister from Southport as their candidate.[8] Davies was originally from Glamorgan and was for 12 years a coal miner. He had beaten off the challenge of a local Labour hopeful to win the candidate selection and was described as an advocate of extreme socialism.[9]

Agriculture was an early issue in the election, with the Liberals aiming a direct appeal at the farmers.[10] This followed the controversy over the Liberal Land enquiry of 1925, instigated by David Lloyd George which had been published as Land and the Nation (also known as the Green Book). It proposed an element of land nationalisation and caused controversy in the party. After heated debate, the more extreme proposals had been taken out and reference to the party's traditional policy of Land Value Taxation strengthened, but reform of the agricultural system to benefit rural workers remained a key Liberal policy.[11] In addition, Tomlinson was able to take advantage of his profession as a corn miller to present himself as someone who knew agriculture well and had its interests at heart. There was a general dissatisfaction among farmers and rural workers with the policy of the Tory government towards agricultural affairs with many claiming to have been promised much by Stanley Baldwin’s administration but with little to show for it.[12] Tomlinson argued that what the farmers wanted more than anything was security of tenure.[13]

Ramsbotham however was a member of the National Farmers Union and said he stood for many of the Union's demands, including the easing of local rates on farms and farm buildings, special purchasing arrangements for meat to feed the British armed forces and the rectifying of other grievances concerning imported milk and eggs.[14] He also attacked the Liberal position on land nationalisation and the bureaucratic control of farmers which Land and the Nation had recommended.[15]

Davies focused his appeal to the electorate on philosophical grounds, pointing out the unfairness of social and political systems based on vested interests to the permanent and deep disadvantage of working people.[16] However Labour's ability to get their messages across seem to have been hampered from the outset by the tactical difficulty of being the third party in a three-cornered contest. At the 1924 general election, the Labour candidate had come third with 17.5% of the poll.[17] It became plain that, despite a good Labour showing in other by-elections, in particular the Labour gain from the Conservatives at Northampton on 9 January, Lancaster would be a struggle for supremacy between the Conservative and Liberal candidates. By February it was being reported that the Labour team was growing in despondency as the awareness of this situation became increasingly apparent.[18]

Ramsbotham generally took the line of fighting on the government's record and attacking the opposition parties for what he called their lack of effectiveness in Parliament.[19] He also attacked the pretensions of the socialist candidate and Liberal problems concerning the leadership of their party.[20] He defended the government's expenditure on the military and the conversion of War Debt and warned about opposition attempts to misrepresent these policies.[21] Ramsbotham told the electorate that no party had a positive cure for unemployment, which could only be remedied by an improvement in trade.[22] Whether true or not, this emollient line could have given little comfort to those suffering from being out of work or fearing unemployment in a difficult economic climate. As Ramsbotham spoke out for the government's success, so Tomlinson went on the attack. He argued that the government had failed to keep its pledges, that it must reduce expenditure and that it had failed to grasp the problems in the coal industry in the aftermath of the General Strike. Among other policies, he particularly advocated an extension of the national insurance scheme, electoral reform to ensure majority rule, temperance and land taxation reform.[23]

Ramsbotham, in his election address, referred to the question of religious education in schools, which he supported as a vital need. He said that children should be taught the religion desired by their parents and this was thought to have been an appeal to Roman Catholic voters in Lancaster where a local controversy over their schools had recently arisen.[24] Given the strong nonconformist associations of the Liberal and Labour candidates, this could be seen as an intelligent appeal.