The 1964

Devizes Devizes () is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-cent ...

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

was held on 14 May 1964 after the death of the incumbent

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

MP,

Percivall Pott Percivall Pott (6 January 1714, in London – 22 December 1788) was an English surgeon, one of the founders of orthopaedics, and the first scientist to demonstrate that cancer may be caused by an environmental carcinogen, namely chimney sweeps ...

. It was won by the Conservative candidate

Charles Morrison Sir Charles Andrew Morrison (25 June 1932 – 9 May 2005) was a British landowner and Conservative Party politician. He served as Member of Parliament for Devizes from 1964 until 1992. Early life Morrison was born in London, the son of Joh ...

a member of

Wiltshire County Council Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters at County Hall in Trowbridge. Since 2009 it has bee ...

and chair of its Education Committee.Charles Morrison obituary
telegraph.co.uk Opinion poll forecasts and against the trend in the three other by-elections held on the same day were predicting a Labour win. The surprise victory was attributed to Morrison being well-known, popular and active in the constituency. His campaign had the support of

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer, best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., and his ...

, a relation by marriage of Morrison's wife Sara, who wrote an article called ''To Westminster with Love'' beginning with the words "Charles Morrison - Licensed to Kill."

Background

The by-election was held on the same day as three others with the Conservatives also defending seats in contests at

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

Rutherglen Rutherglen (; , ) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having previously existed as a separate Lanarkshire burgh, in 1975 Rutherglen lo ...

and

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

. On the day of the election, an article 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 ...

'' reported that Labour and the Conservatives claimed to be confident of victory in Devizes. The same article speculated that whichever party won, their majority would likely not be much greater than 1,500 votes, and noted that "new hope would be put into many faint Conservative hearts" if the party held the seat. The seat had gained around 4,000 new voters since the last general election, and according to the same report two thirds of these were thought likely to be Labour voters.

Result

Reaction

The Labour MP

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party politician and political activist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabine ...

, who campaigned in the constituency during the by-election partly as the Labour candidate was the son of his own

agent Agent may refer to: Espionage, investigation, and law *, spies or intelligence officers * Law of agency, laws involving a person authorized to act on behalf of another ** Agent of record, a person with a contractual agreement with an insuran ...

, recorded in his diary on polling day that he had been told at lunch by his friend the psephologist David Butler, that Labour would "win Devizes quite comfortably". The following day he described in his diary the loss of the seat by 1,000 votes as "a real set-back" for Labour's hopes of victory in the forthcoming

general election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from By-election, by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. Gener ...

. The following morning, when the Bury St Edmunds result was still unknown, ''The Glasgow Herald'' contrasted the Devizes result with that in Rutherglen, which Labour had gained, and Winchester where there was an 8.5% swing to Labour despite the Conservatives retaining the seat. The report noted that holding Devizes Would "hearten" the Conservatives and expressed surprise that the swing to Labour was just 2.7%. However it also observed that Morrison had possibly benefited from being the only local candidate and having been supported by "a superb organisation".

References

{{By-elections to the 42nd UK Parliament By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Wiltshire constituencies Devizes by-election Devizes by-election Devizes by-election 20th century in Wiltshire