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Churchill General Election and By-Election Results 1899-1959
- By DAVE TURRELL
- | April 9, 2024
- Category: Churchill in History Resources
The following are general election and by-election results for Winston Churchill’s twenty-one contests for seats in the House of Commons. Asterisks (*) indicate winners. In Churchill’s time, Oldham and Dundee were two-seat constituencies. The last such constituencies disappeared in 1948.
Majority: The vote gap between the winner (or second winner) and first runner-up, an indicator of political swings.
Dates are when Churchill’s election results were declared. (Some elections spanned several days and even weeks.)
By-election results
By- (or Bye-) elections occur whenever a Parliamentary seat becomes vacant through death or resignation. They are traditional opportunities for aspiring new politicians. For Churchill, these arrived in 1899 and 1900 in the Manchester suburb of Oldham, which then occupied two seats in the House of Commons. Unsuccessful in his first attempt, WSC easily won as a Conservative, after the Boer War had catapulted him to fame in 1900.
Until 1919, any MP appointed to the Cabinet also had to stand in a special by-election. This occurred in 1908, when Churchill, Liberal MP for Manchester North West, entered the Cabinet as President of the Board of Trade. He ran as required and lost. Almost immediately he won a relatively safe seat in Dundee, Scotland, which confirmed his Cabinet position. He held Dundee for sixteen years, winning his fourth by-election there in 1917, when appointed Minister of Munitions.
Churchill’s last by-election occurred in 1924, when he contested and narrowly lost the Abbey Division of Westminster, having been out of office for two years. His by-election record was thus two wins and three losses; fortunately, he did better in the generals.
General election results
Churchill lost his seat in only two general elections. In 1922, his Dundee constituency was taken by the Prohibitionist Edwin Scrymgeour and a Labour candidate, E.D. Morel. Scrymgeour had pursued him five times, winning only 655 votes in his first attempt. Churchill then lost his bid to return as MP for Leicester West in the 1923 general election. Happily, he soon found a safe seat in Epping, Essex. As the subdivided constituency of Woodford from 1945, it saw him victorious in nine straight generals. Overall, he won fourteen of sixteen—an impressive record.
Date | Constituency | Type | Candidates | Party | Votes |
1899: 6 Jul | Oldham | By-Election | Alfred Emmott* | Liberal | 12,976 |
Walter Runciman* | Liberal | 12,770 | |||
Winston Churchill | Conservative | 11,477 | |||
James Mawdsley | Conservative | 11,449 | |||
Majority | 1,293 | ||||
1900: 1 Oct | Oldham | General Election | Alfred Emmott* | Liberal | 12,947 |
Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 12,931 | |||
Walter Runciman | Liberal | 12,709 | |||
Charles Birch Crisp | Conservative | 12,522 | |||
Majority | 425 | ||||
1906: 23 Apr | Manchester NW | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 5,639 |
William Joynson-Hicks | Conservative | 4,398 | |||
Majority | 1,241 | ||||
1908: 24 Apr | Manchester NW | By-Election | William Joynson-Hicks* | Conservative | 5,417 |
Winston Churchill | Liberal | 4,988 | |||
Dan Irving | Social Democratic Federation | 276 | |||
Majority | 429 | ||||
1908: 9 May | Dundee | By-Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 7,079 |
George Washington Baxter | Liberal Unionist | 4,370 | |||
G.H. Stuart Bunning | Labour | 4,014 | |||
Edwin Scrymgeour | Scottish Prohibition | 655 | |||
Majority | 2,709 | ||||
1910: 22 Jan | Dundee | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 10,747 |
Alexander Wilkie* | Labour | 10,365 | |||
John Hall Seymour Lloyd | Conservative | 4,552 | |||
James Glass | Liberal Unionist | 4,339 | |||
Edwin Scrymgeour | Scottish Prohibition | 1,512 | |||
Majority | 6,195 | ||||
1910: 8 Dec | Dundee | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 9,240 |
Alexander Wilkie* | Labour | 8,957 | |||
George Washington Baxter | Liberal Unionist | 5,685 | |||
John Hall Seymour Lloyd | Conservative | 4,914 | |||
Edwin Scrymgeour | Scottish Prohibition | 1,825 | |||
Majority | 3,555 | ||||
1917: 30 Jul | Dundee | By-Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 7,302 |
Edwin Scrymgeour | Scottish Prohibition | 2,036 | |||
Majority | 5,266 | ||||
1918: 14 Dec | Dundee | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Liberal | 25,788 |
Alexander Wilkie* | Labour | 24,822 | |||
Edwin Scrymgeour | Scottish Prohibition | 10,423 | |||
James Sunney Brown | Labour | 7,769 | |||
Majority | 14,399 | ||||
1922: 15 Nov | Dundee | General Election | Edwin Scrymgeour* | Scottish Prohibition | 32,578 |
E.D. Morel* | Labour | 30,292 | |||
David Johnstone MacDonald | National Liberal | 22,244 | |||
Winston Churchill | National Liberal | 20,466 | |||
Robert Pilkington | Liberal | 6,681 | |||
Willie Gallacher | Communist | 5,906 | |||
Majority | 10,334 | ||||
1923: 6 Dec | Leicester West | General Election | Frederick Pethwick-Lawrence | Labour* | 13,634 |
Winston Churchill | Liberal | 9,236 | |||
Alfred Instone | Unionist | 7,696 | |||
Majority | 4,398 | ||||
1924: 19 Mar | Westminster, | By-Election | Capt. Otho. W. Nicholson | Conservative* | 8,187 |
Abbey Division | Winston Churchill | Constitutionalist | 8,144 | ||
Fenner Brockway | Labour | 6,156 | |||
James Scott Duckers | Liberal | 291 | |||
Majority | 43 | ||||
1924: 29 Oct | Epping | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Constitutionalist | 19,843 |
Gilbert Granville Sharp | Liberal | 10,080 | |||
J.R. McPhie | Labour | 3,768 | |||
Majority | 9,763 | ||||
1929: 30 May | Epping | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Unionist | 23,972 |
Gilbert Granville Sharp | Liberal | 19,005 | |||
Walton Newbold | Labour | 6,472 | |||
Majority | 4,967 | ||||
1931: 27 Oct | Epping | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 35,956 |
Arthur Comyns Carr | Liberal | 15,670 | |||
James Ranger | Labour | 4,713 | |||
Majority | 20,286 | ||||
1935: 14 Nov | Epping | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 34,849 |
Gilbert Granville Sharp | Liberal | 14,430 | |||
James Ranger | Labour | 9,758 | |||
Majority | 20,419 | ||||
1945: 5 Jul | Woodford | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 27,688 |
Alexander Hancock | Independent | 10,488 | |||
Majority | 17,200 | ||||
1950: 23 Feb | Woodford | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 37,239 |
Seymour Hills | Labour | 18,740 | |||
Howard Vivien Davies | Liberal | 5,664 | |||
Bill Brooks | Communist | 827 | |||
Majority | 18,499 | ||||
1951: 25 Oct | Woodford | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 40,938 |
William Aarn Archer | Labour | 22,359 | |||
John Ross Campbell | Communist | 871 | |||
Alexander Hancock | Independent | 851 | |||
Majority | 18,579 | ||||
1955: 26 May | Woodford | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 25,069 |
Arnold Keith Morgan Milner | Labour | 9,261 | |||
Majority | 15,808 | ||||
1959: 8 Oct | Woodford | General Election | Winston Churchill* | Conservative | 24,815 |
Arthur Latham | Labour | 10,018 | |||
Majority | 14,797
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More on Churchill’s elections
Luigi Barzini, Sr., “General Election, 1910: Churchill Wins Dundee for the Liberals,” 2013.
Willliam John Shepherd, “Cheers, Mr. Liddle: Building a Better Scottish Churchill,” 2023.
Richard Cohen, “Cancellation Attempts, 1939: Kitty Atholl, Winston Churchill,” 2023.
Klaus Larres, “How Winston Churchill Lost the 1945 British General Election,” 2020.
Richard M. Langworth, “Churchill and Margaret Thatcher: Two Meetings of Two Minds,” 2023.
Michael Richards, “‘Raucous Caucus Clamour’: Winston Churchill on the Referendum,” 2019.
Cheers to the author for yet another excellent work of Churchill Studies.