1906 Huddersfield by-election

UK parliamentary by-election November 2019 1906 Huddersfield by-election presidential United Kingdom Huddersfield (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1900s 1906 Huddersfield (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1910s Jan. 1910 28 November 1906 Sherwell Liberal Party (UK) 5,762 36.0% Williams 65px Labour Party (UK) 5,422 33.8% Fraser 65px Conservative Party (UK) 4,844 30.2% 250px MP Subsequent MP Sir James Woodhouse Liberal Party (UK) Arthur Sherwell Liberal Party (UK) The 1906 Huddersfield by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 28 November 1906.Craig F.W.S. 1987 Chronology of British Parliamentary By-elections 1833–1987 Chichester Parliamentary Research Services 100 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. 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. thumb|120px|Woodhouse General election 1906 Huddersfield Liberal Party (UK) James Woodhouse 6,302 38.2 −15.4 Labour Representation Committee (1900) T. Russell Williams 5,813 35.2 New Conservative Party (UK) John Foster Fraser 4,391 26.6 −19.8 489 3.0 −4.2 16,506 94.0 +6.2 17,568 Liberal Party (UK) +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.Liberalism and the Rise of Labour 1890-1918 by Keith Laybourn, Jack Reynolds, Routledge, 1984 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. 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.The Scottish Suffragettes and the Press by Sarah Pedersen, Palgrave MacMillan, 2017 Result The Liberals held the seat with a slightly reduced majority. Huddersfield by-election, 1906 Liberal Party (UK) Arthur Sherwell 5,762 36.0 -2.2 Labour Party (UK) T. Russell Williams 5,422 33.8 -1.4 Conservative Party (UK) John Foster Fraser 4,844 30.2 +3.6 340 2.2 -0.8 16,028 91.2 -2.8 Liberal Party (UK) -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. General election January 1910: HuddersfieldBritish parliamentary election results, 1885-1918, F. W. S. Craig Liberal Party (UK) Arthur Sherwell 7,158 39.8 +3.8 Labour Party (UK) Harry Snell 5,686 31.6 −2.2 Conservative Party (UK) Harold Smith 5,153 28.6 -1.6 1,472 8.2 +5.2 17,997 94.6 +0.6 19,021 Liberal Party (UK) +2.6 References Huddersfield by-election Huddersfield by-election Category:1900s in Yorkshire Category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in West Yorkshire constituencies Huddersfield by-election Category:Politics of Huddersfield