1955 Mid Ulster by-election

UK parliamentary by-election August 2021 June 2012 1955 08 11 y Tom Mitchell Charles Beattie Sinn Féin Ulster Unionist Party 30,392 29,586 50.7% 49.3% 66,852 89.7 (1.1 pp) Tom Mitchell Mid Ulster constituency by-election Sinn Féin MP Tom Mitchell (Election results annulled) 1955 United Kingdom general election 1955 1956 Mid Ulster by-election 1956 by-election The by-election held in Mid Ulster on 11 August 1955 was called as a result of a vote in the British parliament on 18 July 1955 which voted 197 votes to 63 to nullify the result of the 1955 general election in the constituency. Mitchell won again but lost the seat to Charles Beattie after an election petition, with Beattie also being disqualified shortly after for holding an office of profit. This led to the 1956 Mid Ulster by-election.https://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/dmu.htm Mid-Ulster 1950–1970 Ark 30 April 2025 Background At the 1955 United Kingdom general election, Tom Mitchell won the Mid Ulster constituency. In July 1955, the Attorney General for Northern Ireland moved a motion in the House of Commons to nullify Mitchell's election on the grounds that he was a convicted felon and had been sentenced to a 10 year prison sentence. Accordingly, this made Mitchell ineligible to be a Member of Parliament (MP) under the Forfeiture Act 1870.https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1955/jul/18/mid-ulster-constituency MID-ULSTER CONSTITUENCY (Hansard, 18 July 1955) Hansard 1955-07-18 30 April 2025 The House voted 197 to 63 in favour to nullify the election and declare the Mid Ulster seat vacant. Result 1955 Mid Ulster by-electionhttp://by-elections.co.uk/55b.html https://web.archive.org/web/20121010071845/http://by-elections.co.uk/55b.html 1955 By Election Results 2012-10-10 dead 2015-08-14 Sinn Féin Tom Mitchell 30,392 50.7 +0.5 Ulster Unionist Party Charles Beattie 29,586 49.3 -0.5 806 1.4 +1.0 66,852 89.7 +1.1 66,847 N/A Aftermath In the by-election, Mitchell managed to retain the seat with an increase in the number of votes. In the aftermath of the election, the defeated Unionist candidate successfully lodged a petition to have Mitchell, a convicted felon, removed as MP again. The seat was subsequently given to Charles Beattie with the votes for Mitchell being treated as being "thrown away".https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1955-10-25/debates/b4df3efc-39cf-4935-8861-96a8f180bb53/ElectionPetitionTrialsNorthernIreland Election Petition Trials, Northern Ireland Hansard 1955-10-25 30 April 2025 However, it later emerged that at the time of the election, Beattie was a member of an appeals tribunal, considered an "office of profit under the Crown"; the House of Commons subsequently voted without a division in favour of the Attorney-General's motion that this disqualified him from the office of MP and vacated the seat.https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1956-02-07/debates/4cc543e3-20a7-4053-a566-48a10aa77076/ElectionsMid-Ulster Elections, Mid-Ulster 1956-02-07 Hansard 30 April 2025 As a result, another by-election was called in 1956. External links A Vision of Britain Through Time (Constituency elector numbers) References Category:1955 elections in the United Kingdom Category:20th century in County Londonderry Category:20th century in County Tyrone Category:August 1955 in the United Kingdom Category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in County Londonderry constituencies Category:By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in County Tyrone constituencies Category:1955 elections in Northern Ireland