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The Liberal and Labour Parties in North-East Politics 1900-14: The Struggle for Supremacy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

A. W. Purdue
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The related developments of the rise of the Labour Party and the decline of the Liberal Party have been subjected to considerable scrutiny by historians of modern Britain. Their work has, however, had the effect of stimulating new controversies rather than of establishing a consensus view as to the reasons for this fundamental change in British political life.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 26 , Issue 1 , April 1981 , pp. 1 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1981

References

1 Cole, G. D. H., British Working Class Politics 1832–1914 (1941);Google Scholar Pease, E. R., A History of the Fabian Society (1916).Google Scholar

2 Pelling, H., The Origins of the Labour Party 1880–1900 (1954).Google Scholar

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4 Russell, A. K.. Liberal Landslide: The General Election of 1906 (1973);Google Scholar Blewett, N., The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910 (1972).Google Scholar

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6 Ibid.; P. F. Clarke, Lancashire and the New Liberalism (1971).

7 McKibbin, R., The Evolution of the Labour Party 1910–1924 (1974).Google Scholar

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12 Clarke, P. F., “Electoral Sociology of Modern Britain”, in: History, LVII (1972).Google Scholar

13 In 1906 the sitting Unionist member F. N. Lambton, a Unionist free-trader, was unopposed.

14 In 1892 N. G. Clayton won Hexham for the Conservatives, but he was unseated on petition for extensive treating.

15 The financial position improved slightly after the 1903 conference, which set up a Parliamentary fund for Labour candidates to be financed by contributions from affiliated societies at the annual rate of Id per member.

16 Humphrey, A. W., A History of Labour Representation (1912), p. 120.Google Scholar

17 Morgan, “The New Liberalism”, loc. Cit.

18 Burt, T., An Autobiography (1924), p. 252.Google Scholar

19 Herbert Gladstone Papers, British Museum, Add. Mss 46106. Ironically, it was the capacity of trade-unionist candidates, when backed by their unions, to be such a “golden source” that was often to predicate the Labour Party's choice of candidates in the future.

20 Similarly Morgan, “The New Liberalism”, finds that in Wales there was severe friction with local Liberal associations over the adoption of two miners' candidates in 1903–04. See also Brown, J., “Attercliffe, 1894: How One Local Liberal Party Failed to Meet the Challenge of Labour”, in: Journal of British Studies, XIV (1975).Google Scholar

21 Mann, T., My Memoirs (1923), p. 65;Google Scholar Thompson, E. P., William Morris, Romantic to Revolutionary (1955), pp. 512–25.Google Scholar

22 F. P. Hammill was an ex-Fabian, active in London trade unionism. He played a prominent part in the successful London busmen's strike in 1891 and organised the Amalgamated Omnibus and Tramworkers' Union.

23 Cons. 9,617, Cons. 9,566, Lib. 9,370, Lab. 8,842.

24 In this it resembles the contest at Derby, the only other double-member constituency to be fought by one Liberal and one LRC candidate, and where Richard Bell co-operated closely with the Liberal.

25 In 1885 James Johnston stood as a Labour candidate (C. M. Palmer (Lib.) 5,702, M. J. Johnston (Lab.) 1,731) and in 1892 Dillon Lewis stood as a Labour or Democratic candidate (Sir C. M. Palmer (Lib.) 7,343, D. Lewis (Lab.) 2,416).

26 LRC National Executive Committee Minutes, 9 May 1902, Pease Collection, British Library of Political Science, London.

27 Ibid., 11 06.

28 Ibid., 18 06.

29 Mitchell, I. to MacDonald, J. R., 6 05 1903;Google Scholar Henderson, A. to id., 19 05, Labour Party Letter Files, Transport House, London.Google Scholar

30 Morgan, , “The New Liberalism”. p. 290.Google Scholar

31 Emy, H. V., Liberals. Radicals and Social Politics (1973). p. 103. analyses the composition of the Parliamentary Liberal Party, 1892–1900, and shows the number of publishers, writers and journalists to have reached a peak after the 1906 election.Google Scholar

32 Ibid.

33 For an account of Henderson's early career and of the Barnard Castle by-election, see Purdue, A. W., “Arthur Henderson and Liberal, Liberal-Labour and Labour Politics in the North-East of England 1892–1903”, in: Northern History, XI (1976 for 1975).Google Scholar

34 Bealey, and Pelling, , Labour and Politics, op. cit., p. 154.Google Scholar

35 Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 12 01 1906.Google Scholar

36 Runciman, Sen, to Jun., W. Runciman Jun., 19 03 1905, Runciman Papers, University of Newcastle upon Tyne Library.Google Scholar

37 SirRunciman, W., Before the Mast and After (1924), pp. 276–77.Google Scholar

38 It is, probably, safest to reserve the label “Liberal-Labour” for trade-union candidates supporting the Liberal Party.

39 For an account of Lansbury's campaign in Middlesbrough, see Purdue, A. W., “George Lansbury and the Middlesbrough Election of 1906”. in: International Review of Social History, XVIII (1973).Google Scholar

40 Wansbeck, Morpeth, Durham Mid Division, Middlesbrough.

41 Chester-le-Street: J. W. Taylor (Lab.) 8,085, S. D. Shafto (Union.) 4,895, Rev. A. B. Tebb (Lib.) 4,606: Barnard Castle: A. Henderson (Lab.) 5,540, Capt. E. Bell (Union.) 3,888; Newcastle upon Tyne: W. Hudson (Lab.) 18,869, T. Cairns (Lib.) 18,423, Sir W. R. Plummer (Union.) 11,942. G. Renwick (Union.) 11,233; Sunderland: J. Stuart (Lib.) 13,620, T. Summerbell (Lab.) 13,430, D. H. Haggie (Union.) 7,879. J. S. G. Pemberton (Union.) 7.244.

42 P. Curran (Lab.) 4.698, P. Rose-Innes (Union.) 3,930, S. L. Hughes (Lib.) 3,474, J. O'Hanlon (Irish Nation.) 2,122.

43 H. Pelling, “Two By-elections: Jarrow and Colne Valley, 1907”, in Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain, op. cit.

48 Gregory, R., The Miners and British Politics 1906–1914 (1968), P. 78.Google Scholar

49 Blewett, , The Peers, the Parties and the People, op. cit., p. 234.Google Scholar

50 By 1912, the Barnard Castle Liberals were determined to oppose Henderson at the next election. Emy, Liberals, Radicals and Social Politics, op. cit., p. 287.

51 Barnard Castle: A. Henderson (Lab.) 6,136, H. G. Stobart (Union.) 4,646: Chesterle-le-Street: J. W. Taylor (Lab.) 12,634, S. D. Shafto (Union.) 6,891; Newcastle upon Tyne: E. Shortt (Lib.) 18,779, W. Hudson (Lab.) 18,241, Sir W. R. Plummer (Union.) 14,067, G. Renwick (Union.) 13,928.

52 Jarrow: G. Palmer (Lib.) 4,885, P. Curran (Lab.) 4,818; Gateshead: H. Elverstone (Lib.) 6,800, N. G. Doyle (Union.) 6,323, J. Johnson (Lab.) 3,572; Sunderland: S. Storey (Independent Tariff Reform) 12,334, J. Knott (Union.) 12,270, Rt Hon. J. Stuart (Lib.) 11,529, T. Summerbell (Lab.) 11,058.

53 The Times, 18 January 1910. Bishop Auckland: Sir H. Havelock-Allen (Lib.) 5,391, W. C. Chaytor (Union.) 3,841, Ald. W. House (Lab.), 579.

54 A further factor in Curran's defeat may well have been that he had recently been fined for being drunk and disorderly outside the Palace of Westminster.

55 P. Williams (Lib.) 9,670, C. Dorman (Union.) 6,756, P. Walls (Lab.) 2,710.

56 Blewett, N., “The General Elections of 1910 (Ph.D. thesis, Oxford, 1967), p. 249.Google Scholar

57 A. Henderson (Lab.) 5,868, H. G. Stobart (Union.) 4,423.

58 G. Palmer (Lib.) 5,097, J. Kirkby (Union.) 4,986, A. G. Cameron (Lab.) 4,892.

59 Sir H. Havelock-Allen (Lib.) 4,531, Ald. W. House (Lab.) 3,993, G. E. Markham (Union.) 3,519.

60 H. Greenwood (Lib.) 11,997, E. W. Goldstone (Lab.) 11,291, W. Joynson-Hicks (Union.) 10,300, S. Samuel (Union.) 10,132.

61 Gregory, , The Miners and British Politics, op. cit., p. 80.Google Scholar

62 T. Wing (Lib.) 6,930, T. Richardson (Union.) 4,807, Ald. W. House (Lab.) 4,185.

63 A. Williams (Lib.) 7,241, J. O. Hardicker (Union.) 5,564, G. H. Stuart (Lab.) 5,026.

64 Douglas, , History of the Liberal Party, op. cit., pp. 86–90.Google Scholar

65 Wilson, , The Downfall of the Liberal Party, op. cit., p. 19.Google Scholar

66 McKibbin, , The Evolution of the Labour Party, op. cit., pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

67 Clarke, P. F., review of McKibbin, , op. cit., in English Historical Review, XCI (1976), p. 161.Google Scholar

68 Blewett, , The Peers, the Parties and the People, p. 394.Google Scholar

69 Ibid., p. 401.

70 Ibid.

71 Taylor, A. J. P., English History 1914–1945 (1965), p. 67.Google Scholar