Crewe by-election, 1912

Walter McLaren MP

The Crewe by-election was a Parliamentary by-election. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

Vacancy

Walter McLaren had been Liberal MP for the seat of Crewe since the April 1910 By-Election. In 1912, he died causing the vacancy.

Previous results

General Election December 1910 Electorate 15,866

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Walter Stowe Bright McLaren	7,629	56.3
	Liberal Unionist	Ernest Young Craig	5,925	43.7
Majority
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

The Liberal party had won every election in Crewe, since the seat was created in 1885 apart from the 1895 election, when a Conservative won.

Candidates

The Liberal candidate was 30-year-old Harold Lawson Murphy, a lecturer in Political Economy from Dublin University. He had trained as a solicitor and was secretary to the Liberal Cabinet Minister, Sir John Simon.

The Unionist candidate was Ernest Craig, who had been the unsuccessful Liberal Unionist candidate here in December 1910.

The Labour party, who had not fielded a candidate in December 1910 having fielded a candidate in January 1910, decided to re-enter the contest. Their candidate was James Holmes who was a member of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.

Given the intervention of the Labour party, the result of the previous three-way contest is relevant;

General Election January 1910 Electorate 15,866

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Rt Hon. James Tomkinson	7,761	53.3
	Liberal Unionist	Sir John Lane Harrington	5,419	37.2
	Labour	Frank Herbert Rose	1,380	9.5
Majority
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

Result

Crewe by-election, 1912 Electorate 16,353

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Unionist	Ernest Young Craig	6,260	44.6
	Liberal	Harold Lawson Murphy	5,294	37.7
	Labour	James Holmes	2,485	17.7
Majority
Turnout
	Unionist hold		Swing

The intervention of the Labour candidate took enough votes from the Liberal candidate to help the Unionist candidate win.

Aftermath

A General Election was due to take place by the end of 1915. By the autumn of 1914, the following candidates had been adopted to contest that election;

• Unionist: Ernest Craig
• Liberal: Joseph Davies

Following the by-election the Labour party decided to re-adopt Holmes as their prospective parliamentary candidate. The National Union of Railwaymen agreed to be his sponsor. However Holmes was concerned that another election where the progressive vote was split would result in another Unionist victory. He called for the Labour and Liberal parties to come to some sort of electoral arrangement as had been the practice in the past. In response, the Labour party decided to drop him as prospective candidate.^[1] Due to the outbreak of war, the election never took place. Joseph Davies, who had been adopted as Liberal candidate back in 1913 was a supporter of David Lloyd George and in 1918 was granted the 'Coalition Coupon'. As a result, Ernest Craig withdrew and did not defend the seat he had won 6 years earlier.

General Election 14 December 1918: Crewe Electorate 34,818

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Liberal	Sir Joseph Davies	13,392	56.2
	Labour	James Thomas Brownlie	10,439	43.8
Majority
Turnout
	Liberal gain from Unionist		Swing

References

1. "Labour And Liberalism." Times [London, England] 13 Mar. 1914: 10. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

• Craig, F. W. S. (1974). British parliamentary election results 1885-1918 (1 ed.). London: Macmillan.
• The Social and Economic Development of Crewe, 1780-1923 by William Henry Chaloner [1950]
• The Socialist review - Volume 10 - [1913]
• Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org
• Who's Who: www.ukwhoswho.com
• Debrett's House of Commons 1916