The

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 9 May 1908. The constituency returned two

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MP) to the

House of Commons of the United Kingdom The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 ...

, elected by the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

voting system.

Vacancy

The Liberal MP Edmund Robertson was elevated to the peerage as 1st Baron Lochee.

Electoral history

Candidates

Thirty-four-year-old

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...

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 Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ...

President of the Board of Trade The president of the Board of Trade is head of the Board of Trade. This is a committee of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, first established as a temporary committee of inquiry in the 17th century, that evolved gradually into a government ...

. Under the law at the time, a newly appointed

Cabinet Minister A minister is a politician who heads a ministry, making and implementing decisions on policies in conjunction with the other ministers. In some jurisdictions the head of government is also a minister and is designated the ‘ prime 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

. He was a linen and

jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is '' Corchorus ol ...

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 Mary Ann Baxter (1801 – 19 December 1884) was a noted philanthropist in the Scottish city of Dundee. Family Mary Ann Baxter was the daughter of William Baxter, founder of the Baxter Brothers And Co. Ltd. textile business. She outlived all of ...

The local Labour Party selected 38-year-old G. H. Stuart as their candidate. He was born in

Oldham Oldham is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, amid the Pennines and between the rivers Irk and Medlock, southeast of Rochdale and northeast of Manchester. It is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham, w ...

, and became a

postman A mail carrier, mailman, mailwoman, postal carrier, postman, postwoman, or letter carrier (in American English), sometimes colloquially known as a postie (in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom), is an employee of a post ...

and an activist in the

Postmen's Federation The Postmen's Federation was a trade union representing postal workers in the United Kingdom. In 1889, a "Postmen's Union" was founded in Clerkenwell by Tom Dredge and John Lincoln Mahon. This dissolved after many of its members were sacked, but ...

.''The Labour Who's Who: 1927'', p.210 He also became active in the Labour Party, and stood unsuccessfully in

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

at the

1906 general election The following elections occurred in the year 1906. Asia * 1906 Persian legislative election Europe * 1906 Belgian general election * 1906 Croatian parliamentary election * Denmark ** 1906 Danish Folketing election ** 1906 Danish Landsting electi ...

, 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

seat, and was concerned that it would over-reach itself. Forty-two-year-old

Edwin Scrymgeour Edwin Scrymgeour (28 July 1866 – 1 February 1947) was a British politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dundee in Scotland. He is the only person ever elected to the House of Commons on a prohibitionist ticket, as the ca ...

stood as a Scottish Prohibition Party candidate. He was a native of Dundee and a pioneer of the Scottish

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

, and established his party in 1901 to further this aim. He had previously been a member of the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

. He was elected to Dundee Town Council in 1905. He had not previously stood for parliament.

Campaign

Bundesarchiv B 145 Bild-F001100-0001, Bonn-Beuel, Jutespinnerei und Weberei

The issue of

free trade Free trade is a trade policy that does not restrict imports or exports. It can also be understood as the free market idea applied to international trade. In government, free trade is predominantly advocated by political parties that hold econ ...

protectionism Protectionism, sometimes referred to as trade protectionism, is the economic policy of restricting imports from other countries through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, import quotas, and a variety of other government regulation ...

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 ee external links, below Despite Stuart not being officially endorsed by the Labour Party, the party leader,

Keir Hardie James Keir Hardie (15 August 185626 September 1915) was a Scottish trade unionist and politician. He was a founder of the Labour Party, and served as its first parliamentary leader from 1906 to 1908. Hardie was born in Newhouse, Lanarkshire. ...

, 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 The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

candidate, Winston Churchill.K. D. Brown, ''The First Labour Party, 1906-1914'', pp. 50–51 Stuart was criticised for speaking too little about

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes th ...

and for not holding membership of the

. Scrymgeour described himself as a "Prohibition and Labour" candidate. As a strict

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

, he urged electors to "vote how you pray". The

Women's Social and Political Union The Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) was a women-only political movement and leading militant organisation campaigning for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom from 1903 to 1918. Known from 1906 as the suffragettes, its membership an ...

was active in the campaign, with Mary Gawthorpe,

Emmeline Pankhurst Emmeline Pankhurst (''née'' Goulden; 15 July 1858 – 14 June 1928) was an English political activist who organised the UK suffragette movement and helped women win the right to vote. In 1999, ''Time'' named her as one of the 100 Most Import ...

and

Christabel Pankhurst Dame Christabel Harriette Pankhurst, (; 22 September 1880 – 13 February 1958) was a British suffragette born in Manchester, England. A co-founder of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), she directed its militant actions from exil ...

holding meetings in the town. However, they were upstaged by the non-violent

Women's Freedom League The Women's Freedom League was an organisation in the United Kingdom which campaigned for women's suffrage and sexual equality. It was an offshoot of the militant suffragettes after the Pankhursts decide to rule without democratic support fro ...

member Mary Maloney 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

Aftermath

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 here in 1922.

External links

Churchill's Kinnaird Hall speech: https://books.google.com/books?id=vBHrEAuKNV4C&pg=PA73&dq=Dundee+by-election,+1908&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1V8PUvCHCtT30gXjg4CgCw&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Dundee%20by-election%2C%201908&f=false

References

{{Westminster by-elections in Scotland 1900–1949

By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Dundee constituencies Dundee by-election Dundee by-election 1900s elections in Scotland Dundee by-election 20th century in Dundee History of Dundee