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The 1888 Mid Lanarkshire by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 27 April 1888 for the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...
constituency of Mid Lanarkshire in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
.


Previous MP

The seat had become vacant in April 1888. The constituency's
Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
Member of Parliament, Stephen Mason resigned from his seat. He did this by being appointed
Steward of the Manor of Northstead The office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead functions as a procedural device to allow a member of Parliament (MP) to resign from the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. As members of the House of Commons are forbidden ...
, a notional offices of profit under the Crown, which is used to permit MPs to vacate their seats as Members of the House of Commons cannot technically resign from their seats. Mason (1832–1890) was a
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merchant, who had been the MP for the constituency since the 1885 general election. He was known for having written pamphlets on political topics, such as monetary and land questions, the Anglo-French treaty of 1860 and banking in Scotland.


Candidates

Three candidates were nominated. The list below is set out in descending order of the number of votes received at the by-election. 1. The Liberal Party candidate was John Wynford Philipps (30 May 1860 – 28 March 1938). He was called to the bar of England and Wales in 1886. Philipps contested
Devizes Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century civil war between ...
at the 1886 general election. He was MP for this seat from the by-election until he resigned in 1894. He was subsequently elected MP for Pembrokeshire at an
1898 by-election Events January–March * January 1 – New York City annexes land from surrounding counties, creating the City of Greater New York as the world's second largest. The city is geographically divided into five boroughs: Manhattan, B ...
. He sat for the Welsh county until he was created the 1st Lord St Davids in 1908. He was advanced in the peerage as the 1st Viscount St Davids in 1918. 2. The Conservative candidate was
William Robert Bousfield William Robert Bousfield (12 January 1854 – 16 July 1943) was a British lawyer, Conservative politician and scientist. Biography Bousfield was the son of Edward Tenney Bousfield, an engineer, and his wife Charlotte Eliza Collins, who was a n ...
(12 January 1854 – 16 July 1943), admitted to the bar of England and Wales in 1880. Bousfield was elected MP for Hackney North at a by-election in 1892 and retained that seat until he was defeated in 1906. 3. Representing the Labour interest, as an Independent Labour candidate, was the
Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotl ...
born (James) Keir Hardie (15 August 1856 – 26 September 1915). Hardie had a background as a manual worker, which was unusual for a political candidate in 1888. Previously some working men, with a trade union background, had been elected to Parliament as Liberal-Labour candidates but none without Liberal support. Hardie had worked as a miner. He became a trade unionist and then a journalist. At the time of the by-election he was a member of the Liberal Party, but the local Liberal Association rejected him as its candidate at the by-election. Hardie subsequently was a leading figure in the development of the Labour Party. He was elected Independent Labour MP for West Ham South in 1892 and sat until defeated in 1895. During this time he was the person who presided over the meeting which created 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 ...
(ILP) in 1893. Hardie contested Bradford East for the ILP in a by-election in 1896 and Preston at the 1900 general election for the Labour Representation Committee (LRC). He also contested and won Merthyr Tydfil in the 1900 election. The LRC was renamed the Labour Party in 1906. Hardie was the Parliamentary Labour Party Chairman (its de facto leader) from 1906 until 1908. He continued to represent Merthyr Tydfil until he died in 1915.(1) Craig. (2) ''Dictionary of Labour Biography'', edited by Greg Rosen (Politico's Publishing 2001).


Votes

* Resignation of Mason, April 1888


See also

* Mid Lanarkshire constituency *
List of United Kingdom by-elections (1885–1900) This is a list of parliamentary by-elections in the United Kingdom held between 1885 and 1900, with the names of the previous incumbent and the victor in the by-election and their respective parties. Where seats changed political party at the el ...
*
United Kingdom by-election records Parliamentary by-elections in the United Kingdom occur when a Member of Parliament (MP) vacates a House of Commons seat (due to resignation, death, disqualification or expulsion) during the course of a parliament. Scope of these records Altho ...


References

* ''British Parliamentary Election Results 1885-1918'', compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1974) {{DEFAULTSORT:Lanarkshire Mid by-election 1888 elections in the United Kingdom 1888 in Scotland 1880s elections in Scotland By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Scottish constituencies Lanarkshire History of the Labour Party (UK) April 1888 events