The Fulham East

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

, in Fulham, on 25 October 1933 was held after

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

Member 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 o ...

(MP)

Kenyon Vaughan-Morgan Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Kenyon Pascoe Vaughan-Morgan OBE (27 October 1873 – 21 August 1933) was a British military officer and politician, who served as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Fulham East from 1922 until his death. Vaughan- ...

died. The election was surprisingly won by John Charles Wilmot of

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

. The seat itself is wrongly regarded as a 'safe' Conservative seat because it returned a Conservative at most previous elections. However, it was marginal in most of those occasions except the remarkable circumstances of 1931 and Labour's electoral destruction. The election was seen as a test of the developing mood of

pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaign ...

in the country at the time, so much so that it became known as the 'Peace by-election'. The heavy defeat for the National Government candidate, a strong supporter of rearmament, helped, along with the Peace Ballot of 1935, to bring about a rethink in the government's agenda.

Results

Aftermath

A correspondent in ''The

Glasgow Herald ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

'' described the result as "an unpleasant surprise", noting that while it was not expected that Waldron would obtain "a large majority, there was a confident hope that he at least would win through. Certainly a Labour majority of 4840 was not in the picture." The same author considered various factors as lying behind the result including apathy of Conservative and Liberal voters, and Germany's withdrawal from the League of Nations and the

World Disarmament Conference The Conference for the Reduction and Limitation of Armaments, generally known as the Geneva Conference or World Disarmament Conference, was an international conference of states held in Geneva, Switzerland, between February 1932 and November 1934 ...

causing a "War scare" which Wilmot's supporters exploited to win votes, particularly from female voters. Ultimately Wilmot would fail to be re-elected for the seat at the next general election, with the Conservative William Astor gaining the seat with a majority of just over 1,000 votes.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fulham East By-Election, 1933 1933 elections in the United Kingdom By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in London constituencies Elections in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham 1933 in London October 1933 events Fulham