1908 Dundee by-election

UK parliamentary by-election August 2020 November 2013 1908 Dundee by-election presidential United Kingdom Dundee (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1900s 1906 Dundee (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1910s Jan. 1910 9 May 1908 Winston Churchill File:1908_Winston_Churchill.jpg Liberal Party (UK) 7,099 43.9% George Washington Baxter Liberal Unionist Party Liberal Unionist Party 4,370 27.1% G. H. Stuart-Bunning File:GH_Stuart-Bunning.jpg Labour Party (UK) 4,014 24.9% Edwin Scrymgeour File:Scrymgeour.jpg Scottish Prohibition Party 655 4.1% 250px MP Subsequent MP Edmund Robertson Liberal Party (UK) Winston Churchill Liberal Party (UK) The 1908 Dundee by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 9 May 1908 for the constituency of Dundee.Craig F.W.S. 1987 Chronology of British Parliamentary By-elections 1833–1987 Chichester Parliamentary Research Services 102 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. Vacancy The by-election was triggered by the incumbent Liberal MP, Edmund Robertson, vacating the seat upon being elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Lochee. Previous election thumb|120px|Robertson General election 1906: Dundee (2 seats) Liberal Party (UK) Edmund Robertson 9,276 31.7 +1.5 Labour Representation Committee (1900) Alexander Wilkie 6,833 23.3 New Liberal Party (UK) Henry Robson 6,122 20.9 -6.4 Liberal Unionist Party Ernest Shackleton 3,865 13.2 -6.8 Conservative Party (UK) A. Duncan Smith 3,183 10.9 -9.2 5,411 18.5 +8.9 711 2.4 N/A 29,279 81.9 +12.4 Liberal Party (UK) Labour Party (UK) Liberal Party (UK) Candidates Thirty-four-year-old Winston Churchill was selected by the local Liberal Association to be their candidate. Churchill had been elected Liberal MP for Manchester North West at the 1906 general election but had lost his seat at the 1908 Manchester North West by-election on 24 April. Churchill had been appointed to the Cabinet by H. H. Asquith as President of the Board of Trade. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister was obliged to seek re-election at a by-election; hence, he sought an opportunity to return to parliament. Sir George Baxter, a 55-year-old local man, was chosen by the Unionists in Dundee. He was a linen and jute manufacturer, and had been Chairman of Dundee and District Liberal Unionist Association ever since its creation in 1886. He had contested Montrose Burghs in 1895. Baxter was the son of the former Liberal MP for Montrose Burghs, William Edward Baxter, and a great-nephew of the philanthropists Sir David Baxter and Mary Ann Baxter.MS 369 Baxter family wills and related papers http://arccat.dundee.ac.uk/dserve.exe?&dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=10&dsqSearch=((text)=%27george%20washington%27) Archive Services Online Catalogue University of Dundee 10 May 2016 thumb|120px|Stuart-Bunning The local Labour Party selected 38-year-old G. H. Stuart as their candidate. He was born in Oldham, and became a postman and an activist in the Postmen's Federation.The Labour Who's Who: 1927, p.210 He also became active in the Labour Party, and stood unsuccessfully in York at the 1906 general election,K. D. Brown, The First Labour Party, 1906-1914, p.108 His candidature was endorsed by the Scottish section of the party, but the National Executive refused to back him, as the party already held the other Dundee seat, and was concerned that it would over-reach itself. Forty-two-year-old Edwin Scrymgeour stood as a Scottish Prohibition Party candidate. In direct opposition to Churchill, who had conducted his campaign from various hotel and hostelry bars and rarely made it back to his occasional residence in Springfield. Whereas Scrymgeour, a native of Dundee and a pioneer of the Scottish temperance movement, had established his party in 1901 to further this aim. He had previously been a member of the Independent Labour Party. He was elected to Dundee Town Council in 1905. He had not previously stood for parliament. Campaign thumb|right|Raw jute The issue of free trade v protectionism featured prominently in the campaign. This was because the jute industry was significant in Dundee, and it relied on importing raw jute, mainly from India. The Unionist, Sir George Baxter, stood on a protectionist platform, focusing his protectionist demands on Germany rather than India. However, James Caird, a prominent local jute proprietor, actively supported the free-trader Churchill by funding his pro-free trade propaganda. On 14 May (after the poll), Churchill gave a significant speech at Kinnaird Hall [see external links, below]. Despite Stuart not being officially endorsed by the Labour Party, the party leader, Keir Hardie, sent him a letter of support in which condemned Churchill for "shameless prevarication" over the Right to Work Bill. He also spoke on Stuart's platform, and the Dundee Courier enthusiastically reported his criticisms of the Liberal Party candidate, Winston Churchill.K. D. Brown, The First Labour Party, 1906-1914, pp. 50–51 Stuart was criticised for speaking too little about socialism and for not holding membership of the Independent Labour Party. Scrymgeour described himself as a "Prohibition and Labour" candidate. As a strict Christian, he urged electors to "vote how you pray".March 2025 The Women's Social and Political Union was active in the campaign, with Mary Gawthorpe, Emmeline Pankhurst and Christabel Pankhurst holding meetings in the town. However, they were upstaged by the non-violent Women's Freedom League member Dorothy Moloney who came up from London for the campaign. Whenever Churchill spoke, Maloney produced a swinging dinner bell which drowned out what he was saying. The ding-dong exchanges were taken in fun initially, but some meetings had to be cancelled because of the uproar.Dundee: a short history - Page 140 Result thumb|120px|Churchill Dundee by-election, 1908"Winston Churchill heads the poll for Dundee", The Evening Post, 20 January 1910 Liberal Party (UK) Winston Churchill 7,079 43.9 -8.7 Liberal Unionist Party (UK) George Washington Baxter 4,370 27.1 -3.0 Scottish Labour Party G. H. Stuart-Bunning 4,014 24.9 +1.6 Scottish Prohibition Party Edwin Scrymgeour 655 4.1 New 2,709 16.8 -1.7 16,138 84.6 +2.7 Liberal Party (UK) -2.9 Following election General election Jan 1910: Dundee (2 seats)Debrett's House of Commons and the Judicial Bench, 1916 Liberal Party (UK) Winston Churchill 10,747 34.1 -18.5 Labour Party (UK) Alexander Wilkie 10,365 32.9 +1.6 Conservative Party (UK) John Hall Seymour Lloyd 4,552 14.4 +3.5 Liberal Unionist Party James Glass 4,339 13.8 +0.6 Scottish Prohibition Party Edwin Scrymgeour 1,512 4.8 N/A 31,515 86.1 +4.2 6,195 19.7 +1.2 Liberal Party (UK) 5,813 18.5 +16.1 Labour Party (UK) Churchill continued to represent Dundee until 1922. Baxter re-appeared as candidate here at the December 1910 general election, his last electoral contest. Stuart made one further unsuccessful attempt to enter parliament, otherwise he concentrated on his Trade Union career. Scrymgeour continued to contest elections in Dundee and was eventually elected to the seat in 1922. See also 1917 Dundee by-election 1924 Dundee by-election External links Churchill's Kinnaird Hall speech is in: https://books.google.com/books?id=vBHrEAuKNV4C&dq=Dundee+by-election%2C+1908&pg=PA73 Liberalism and the Social Problem: A Collection of Early Speeches as a Member of Parliament 9780978653644 Churchill Winston S. Churchill Winston 2007 Arc Manor References Dundee Category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies Category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Dundee constituencies Dundee by-election Dundee by-election Dundee by-election, 1908 Dundee by-election By-election, 1908