Edwin Scrymgeour (28 July 1866 – 1 February 1947) was a British politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for

Dundee Dundee (; ; or , ) is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, fourth-largest city in Scotland. The mid-year population estimate for the locality was . It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firt ...

in Scotland. He is the only person ever elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, 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 ...

on a

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

ist ticket, as the candidate of the Scottish Prohibition Party. He was affectionately known as Neddy Scrymgeour.

Life

A native of

, he was educated at West End Academy. He was a pioneer of the Scottish

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting Temperance (virtue), temperance or total abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and ...

and established his party in 1901 to further that aim. In 1896 he is listed as a clerk, living at 42 Kings Road in Dundee. He served on

Dundee City Council Dundee City Council is the Local government in Scotland, local authority for Dundee City council area, Dundee City, one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. In its modern form it was created in 1996. Dundee was formerly governed by a municipal c ...

and began contesting elections in the 1908 Dundee by-election, which saw

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

first elected for Dundee, and Scrymgeour continued to fight at every election thereafter and increased his vote. That was in part because of his popularity, generally left-wing sympathies and history with the labour movement. Churchill's stance against

suffragettes A suffragette was a member of an activist women's organisation in the early 20th century who, under the banner "Votes for Women", fought for women's suffrage, the right to vote in public elections in the United Kingdom. The term refers in part ...

may have had an impact in a city that had many women as breadwinners and many men as "kettle-boilers" ( househusbands). In 1910 he was living at 92 Victoria Road in Dundee. In the 1922 election, Scrymgeour and the Labour candidate,

E. D. Morel Edmund Dene Morel (born Georges Edmond Pierre Achille Morel Deville; 10 July 1873 – 12 November 1924) was a French-born British journalist, author, pacifist and politician. As a young official at the shipping company Elder Dempster, Morel ob ...

, jointly ousted

, who had represented the city as a Liberal (to then a Coalition Liberal). Scrymgeour remained an MP for Dundee until the 1931 general election, when he was ousted by Florence Horsbrugh. Out of Parliament, Scrymgeour worked as an evangelical Chaplain at East House and

Maryfield Hospital Maryfield Hospital was a hospital in Stobswell, Dundee, Scotland. Originally a poorhouse hospital it became Dundee's second main hospital after Dundee Royal Infirmary. It closed in the 1970s following the opening of Ninewells Hospital. History ...

in Dundee. Scrymgeour was a leader of the unsuccessful opposition to disbanding the Scottish Prohibition Party in 1935. He died at his home in Dundee on 1 February 1947, followed by his wife Margaret on 28 May. Both were interred alongside Scrymgeour's father James in Dundee's Eastern Cemetery.

References

External links

*
''Three Dundonians: James Carmichael, Charles W Boase and Edwin Scrymgeour'' by SGE Lythe, JT Ward and DG Southgate (Abertay Historical Society 1968)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scrymgeour, Edwin 1866 births 1947 deaths Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Dundee constituencies Politicians from Dundee Independent politicians in Scotland UK MPs 1922–1923 UK MPs 1923–1924 UK MPs 1924–1929 UK MPs 1929–1931 Scottish temperance activists Councillors in Dundee