A Riot in Birmingham and the Death of David Lloyd George: A Timeline from December 1901

After the death of Damat Ferid Pasha, the post of Grand Vizier was abolished, and Ahmet Tevfik Pasha became Prime Minister of the Ottoman Empire. (1) He was in office until February 1929 when Riza Tevfik became Prime Minister. (2) He was a member of the Freedom and Accord Party. Tevfik Pasha was an Independent.

In the First Aliyah, or wave of Jewish immigration to Palwstine, from 1881-82 to 1903 an estimated 25,000 Jews settled there. In the Second Aliyah from 1904 to 1914, Jewish immigration to Palestine was about 35,000. Palestine was defined as extending in a north-south direction from the River Litani in OTL Lebanon to Rafah, south-east of Gaza. Its western boundary was the Mediterranean Sea. Its eastern border went slightly east of Amman. (3)

The Great War ended before British troops could conquer Palestine, so it remained part of the Ottoman Empire. There was no Balfour Declaration. Jewish immigration to Palestine continued after the war, though at a lower level than in the First or Second Aliyahs.

(1) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmet_Tevfik_Pasha,

(2) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riza_Tevfik_Bolukbasi.

(3) This paragraph was as in OTL. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine, section headed Restoration of Ottoman control.
 
During the Great War, the Russian government recognised the Polish right to autonomy and permitted the foundation of the Polish National Committee, which supported Russia. [1] After the Russian revolution in June 1916, the Russian government granted Poland its independence. Its boundaries were as shown on the maps here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congress_Poland#/media/File:KingdomofPoland_1815.jpg. Jozef Pilsudski became Chief of State. He was shot dead in December 1922 by Eligiusz Niewiadomski, a right-wing art critic and painter. [2] Gabriel Narutowicz was elected President of Poland by the National Assembly, the two houses of Parliament. [3]

[1] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_National_Committee_(1914-1917)

[2] See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eligiusz_Niewiadomski.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Narutowicz.
 
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William Edward Robinson, Liberal MP for Burslem [in Stoke-on-Trent], died on 10 May 1926. The subsequent by-election was held on 8 June. The percentage votes won by each candidate were as follows [July 1925 general election}:
Labour: 56.1 [48.8]
Liberal: 35.5 [51.2]
Conservative: 8.4 [n/a]
-------------------------------
Labour majority: 20.6 [Liberal majority: 2.4]
-------------------------------
Labour gain from Liberal.

The Kennington by-election caused by the death of Thomas Williams (Labour) on 7 July 1927, took place on 9 August. The percentage votes for each candidate were as follows:
Hugh Dalton (Labour): 47.2 [39.4]
Conservative: 32.8 [29.0]
Liberal: 20.0 [31.6]
------------------------------------
Labour majority: 14.4 [7.8]
------------------------------------

Charles Masterman resigned as Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party on 26 September 1927. But not as Liberal MP for Hackney Central. He suffered badly from hay fever and his health had been getting worse. He was also a heavy drinker. An alcoholic according to some historians. His cabinet colleagues told him that he must resign. He died on 17 November 1927.

He was succeeded as Prime Minister and Liberal leader by the Foreign Secretary, Herbert Samuel. He was on the centre of the Liberal Party, and was thought by Liberal MPs to be the best person to reconcile the left and right wings of the party.
 
Herbert Samuel made the following changes to his government:
Walter Runciman from Chancellor of the Exchequer to Foreign Secretary
Sir John Simon from Home Secretary to Chancellor of the Exchequer
Winston Churchill joined the cabinet as Home Secretary.

The Hackney Central by-election caused by the death of Masterman was held on 10 January 1928. The percentage votes for each party were as follows [1925 general election]:
Labour: 38.6 [34.4]
Liberal: 35.4 [40.8]
Conservative: 26.0 [ 24.8]
-------------------------------------------
Labour majority: 3.2 [Liberal majority: 6.4]
------------------------------------------

After Herbert Asquith suffered his third stroke at the end of December 1927, he resigned as Liberal MP for East Fife. The subsequent by-election took place on 2 February 1928 and the percentage votes for each party were as follows:
James Millar (Liberal): 52.2 [58.6]
Conservative: 47.8 [41.4]
-------------------------------------
Liberal majority: 4.4 [17.2]
-----------------------------------
 
In 1926 the British Broadcasting Company became the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), as a broadcasting monopoly governed by a board of governors and a director-general, and financed by licence fees paid by owners of radios. John Reith was appointed the first director-general of the BBC. (1)

The Local Government Act 1927 abolished the Boards of Guardians and transferred their responsibilities for the poor law to county councils and county borough councils, and to borough councils, urban district councils, and rural district councils with populations of at least 25,000. (2) The Local Government Bill was the responsibility of the Minister of Health, Christopher Addison.

In 1926, Ramsay Muir, the Liberal MP for Rochdale, brought together academics, economists including Keynes and Walter Layton, and Liberal politicians, for the Liberal Industrial Inquiry. Its report Britain's Industrial Future (called the Yellow Book because of the colour of its cover) was published in September 1927. Among its radical new proposals were the following: a large scale programme of public works in road building, housing, electricity, telephones etc ; public boards for vital industries, the creation of an economic general staff in Whitehall, the use of the Bank of England to encourage investment, compulsory profit-sharing schemes for the benefit of employees, and work councils. (3)

There was a general election after the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867, 1884, the Representation of the People Act 1917. There were demands by the Conservative and Labour parties that following the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act 1926, which reduced the minimum voting age for women from 30 to 21, there should be a general election in accordance with precedent. On 25 April 1928, the Prime Minister, Herbert Samuel, announced in the House of Commons, that a general election would be held on Thursday 24 May 1928. Parliament would be dissolved on 4 May and assemble on 5 June, after the general election.

Unemployment was an important issue in the general election campaign, In March 1928, the number of unemployed insured workers was around 1,100,000. This was about 300,000 less than in April 1923 when the Liberal Party returned to power. The Conservative and Labour parties accused the government of complacency regarding unemployment.

(1) This was as in OTL except 1926 instead of 1927.

(2) This was like the Local Government Act 1929 in OTL, but that act transferred poor law responsibilities to county and county borough councils only.

(3) This was much like the report of the Liberal Industrial Inquiry published in 1928 in OTL.
 
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The Conservative manifesto for the general election promised that a Conservative government would impose tariffs on selected industries to protect them from foreign competition, but not on food imports.

The Liberal manifesto featured a watered down version of Britain's industrial Future . The policies in the Labour manifesto to reduce unemployment were little different from the Liberals'. If anything they were less bold. Both parties were committed to the continuation of free trade.
 
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The party leaders each gave an election broadcast on BBC radio. The consensus was that the best performance was by the Labour leader, Arthur Henderson. Much publicity was given to the betting on the London Stock Exchange which predicted that each party would win the following number of seats:
Labour: about 220
Conservative: about 210
Liberal: about: 190.

On election day, 24 May 1928, polling stations were open from 8 am to 8 pm. This was the first election in which women between the ages of 21 and 30 could vote, and the newsreels and newspaper photographs, showed pretty young women voting for the first time. There was lot of speculation as to how the flappers, as they were called, would vote. An innovation was that the party allegiances of the candidates were printed on ballot papers.

The first result declared was Oxford. This was a Conservative gain from Liberal by a majority of 7.4%. The Liberal majority in the July 1925 general election was 8.8%. The percentage votes were as follows (1925 election):
Conservative: 46.8 (41.5)
Liberal: 39.4 (50.3)
Labour: 13.8 (8.2).
 
As the overnight results were declared, both the Conservatives and Labour gained seats from the Liberals, though Labour more than the Conservatives. In the constituencies where voting was by First Past The Post, the Tory gains were: Bath, Bootle, Bury, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Hornsey, Middleton and Prestwich, Waterloo, Southend, Wallasey, and Worcester. They hoped to gain more when the rural seats were declared on the following day. Among the Labour gains from Liberal were Barnsley, Battersea North, Bermondsey West, Chesterfield, East Ham North, Gloucester, Halifax, Keighley, Northampton, Paisley, Shoreditch, Stirling and Falkirk Burghs, Stockton-on-Tees, and Swansea East.

Labour also gained the following seats from the Conservatives: Accrington, Blackburn (one - double member constituency) , Chatham, Darlington, Hammersmith North, Lewisham East, Swindon, Woolwich West, and York.

Those city constituencies where voting was by the Single Transferable Vote took longer to count. They were three, four or five member seats. Stepney was the first to declare. Clement Attlee was elected on the first count. Another Labour candidate and a Liberal were elected. The Conservative Party leader, Austen Chamberlain, was elected on the first count, in the Birmingham Central constituency. Also elected were another Conservative and two Labour candidates. The Prime Minister, Herbert Samuel, was re-elected in South Shields, but his majority over Labour fell from 37.6% in the 1925 general election to 11.4%. But the Liberals intervened in this election.
 
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Counting resumed in the morning of Friday 25 May and more results were declared. Conservative gains from Liberal were: Aberdeenshire East, Basingstoke, Bedford, Buckingham, Chichester, Harborough, Henley, Lonsdale, Moray and Nairn, Oswestry, Rushcliffe, Rye, Saffron Walden, Sevenoaks, Stone, Stroud, and Weston-super-Mare, However Cambridgeshire was a Liberal gain from Conservative. Among the Labour gains from Liberal were: Belper, Faversham, Llandaff and Barry, Loughborough, Nuneaton. Penistone, Peterborough, Stalybridge and Hyde. Stirlingshire East and Clackmannan, and Wrexham. Labour gained the following seats from Conservative: Essex South-East, Frome, Kettering, Kilmarnock. Norfolk South-West, and Ormskirk. But the Tories took Gravesend, and Renfrewshire West from Labour. The Labour leader, Arthur Henderson was re-elected in Barnard Castle, but his majority over Conservative fell from 11.8% to 6.7% because of Liberal intervention.

Because the Conservatives were under represented in those city constituencies where voting was by STV, they gained at the expense of Labour and Liberals. From Labour they gained one seat in each of Manchester, Salford, Sheffield, West Ham, and Wolverhampton, and three seats in Glasgow. Labour gains from Conservative were one seat in each of Lambeth, Nottingham, and Wandsworth. Tory gains from Liberal were one seat in each of Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Hackney, Hull, Islington, Leicester, and Liverpool, and two in Manchester. Liberal gains from Conservative were one seat in each of Leeds and Wandsworth. Labour gains from Liberal were one seat in each of Bradford, Bristol, Edinburgh, Islington, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouth, Southwark, Stepney, and Stoke-on-Trent, and two seats in Hull.

Conservatives and Labour made net gains of seats and Liberals net losses in these constituencies. Analysis of the results has concluded that the Conservatives and Labour did better, and Liberals worse, than if voting had still been by FPTP in single member constituencies.

When all the results had been declared by 26 May, the number of seats in the House of Commons won by each party were as follows (1925 election):
Labour: 262 (196)
Conservative: 190 (163)
Liberal: 162 (258)
Scottish Prohibition: 1 (0)
Independents: 4 (2)
Independent Conservative : 1 (0)
(Independent Liberal: 1)
------------------------
Total: 620 (620)
-----------------------

The percentage votes for each party were:
Labour: 34.1 (30.7)
Conservative: 32.5 (31.4)
Liberal: 32.1 (37.2)
Others: 1.3 (0.7)
--------------------------
Total: 100.0 (100.0)
-------------------------
Turnout was 80.5%, up from 79.2% in the 1925 general election. All parties increased their numerical votes because of the increase in the size of the electorate.
 
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In the May 1928 general election, Gwilym Lloyd George was re-elected as Liberal MP for Pembrokeshire. He had previously been elected for the constituency in the 1923 and 1925 general elections. His sister, Megan, was elected Liberal MP for Anglesey following the retirement of the previous Liberal MP. David Lloyd George's widow, Margaret, brought up Gwilym and Megan as staunch Liberals. She was a leading figure in Welsh Liberalism and was President of the Welsh Women's National Liberal Federation. Gwilym was seven years old when his father died. Megan was born on 22 April 1902.

Also in the 1928 general election, Aneurin Bevan was elected Labour MP for Ebbw Vale, and Richard Austen Butler was elected Conservative MP for Saffron Walden. Jennie Lee was elected Labour MP for Dunfermline District of Burghs. She was only 23 years old. She was selected as the Labour candidate for the constituency because she had several advantages. She was born and grew up in the mining town of Cowdenbeath, which was a burgh in the constituency. She was a graduate of Edinburgh University, and Scottish mining communities greatly valued education. She was the daughter and granddaughter of miners. She was a brilliant public speaker and endorsed by the Independent Labour Party (ILP). She was an old family friend of Scottish ILP MPs, David Kirkwood, David Maxton and John Wheatley. She was elected with a majority of 17.6% over the Liberals. In 1925 the Liberal majority was 6.0%.

Harold Macmillan was not elected for Stockton-on-Tees in the 1923 and 1925 general elections. In the 1928 election he was elected as one of the two Conservative MPs for the five-member Manchester North constituency. He was second place in the Conservatives elected.

Bevan, Butler, Gwilym Lloyd George and Megan Lloyd George were elected for the same constituencies as in OTL, except a year earlier. In OTL Jennie Lee won Lanarkshire North for Labour in a by-election in March 1929, and was re-elected in the May 1929 general election. Macmillan was elected Conservative MP for Stockton-on-Tees in the 1924 general election, but lost it in the 1929 election.
 
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Herbert Samuel resigned and Arthur Henderson became Prime Minister at the head of a minority Labour government on 29 May 1928. He appointed his cabinet on 31 May. The members were as follows:
Prime Minister: Arthur Henderson
Lord Chancellor: Lord Sankey
Lord President of the Council: Lord Parmoor
Lord Privy Seal: John Clynes
Chancellor of the Exchequer: Philip Snowden
Foreign Secretary: James Ramsay MacDonald
Home Secretary: Thomas Johnston
First Lord of the Admiralty: Albert Victor Alexander
President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries: Tom Cape
Air Secretary: Lord Thomson
Colonial Secretary: Sidney Webb
Dominions Secretary: James Thomas
President of the Board of Education: Charles Trevelyan
Minister of Health: Selina Cooper
India Secretary: Clement Attlee
Minister of Labour: Thomas Shaw
Scottish Secretary: William Adamson
President of the Board of Trade: William Graham
War Secretary: Frederick Montague
First Commissioner of Works: George Lansbury.

Ministers outside the cabinet appointed 1 to 3 June:
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Vernon Hartshorn
Paymaster-General: Earl de la Warr
Minister of Pensions: Frederick Roberts
Postmaster-General: Sir Oswald Mosley
Minister of Transport: Arthur Greenwood
Attorney-General: Sir Henry Slesser KC
Solicitor-General: Sir James Melville KC.

Selected junior minister appointed 3 June:
Financial Secretary to the Treasury: Hugh Dalton
Under Secretary Foreign Office: William Lunn
Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Health: Herbert Morrison
Parliamentary Secretary: Ministry of Labour: Ellen Wilkinson.
 
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Arthur Henderson put John Clynes, Lord Privy Seal, in charge of employment policy. He was assisted by Vernon Hartshorn, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and George Lansbury, First Commissioner of Works. Clynes and Hartshorn were in the mainstream of the Labour Party, while Lansbury was on the left wing. They proposed measures which were in line with the Labour Party manifesto for the 1928 general election, but anything contrary to Treasury orthodoxy was rejected by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden.

The government used export credits and trade facilities guarantees to stimulate exports in the engineering, iron and steel, and textile industries. The Development Act 1928 authorised grants up to £25 million, and a further £25 million in guarantees, for public work schemes to reduce unemployment. The Colonial Development Act 1928 authorised grants up to £1 million in the colonies. (1)

On 24 November 1928, Snowden returned Britain to the gold standard at the pre 1914 level of US$ 4.86 to the pound. The only cabinet minister who opposed it was William Graham, the President of the Board of Trade. But he did not resign over the issue. The other ministers trusted in Snowden's reputation as a financial expert, or had little interest in the matter.

(1) These acts were as in the second Labour government of 1929 to 1931 in OTL. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_MacDonald_ministry.
 
Frank Rose, the Labour MP for Aberdeen North, died on 10 July 1928. The subsequent by-election on 10 August 1928 was held for Labour by Patrick Dollan. (1) The Bishop Auckland by-election on 7 February 1929, caused by the death of Ben Spoor (Labour) on 22 December 1928, was held for Labour by James Chuter Ede. (2)

(1) In OTL this by-election was won for Labour by William Wedgwood Benn. In this TL he was a Liberal MP then.

(2) In OTL this by-election was won by Hugh Dalton. In this TL he was elected a Labour MP in 1927.
 
In November 1928 the Labour government increased unemployment benefit from 17 shillings to 18 shillings and sixpence a week. In the Committed Stage of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, Jennie Lee moved an amendment to increase the children's allowance from two shillings to five shillings a week. She argued that this would reduce ill health and malnutrition, raise working class purchasing power, and increase employment. Her amendment was heavily defeated. Only 35 MPs voted for it, including Lee, Nye Bevan and Eleanor Rathbone (Combined English Universities - Independent).

The question of family allowances was a highly divisive issue in the Labour movement. Men and trade unions defended the 'family wage' against women, anti poverty campaigners and Independent Labour Party (ILP), who campaigned for family allowances. In 1926, the ILP policy document The Living Wage "argued that the basic wage should meet the needs 'not of the whole family , but of a man and his wife'; family allowances and not the husband's wage would support their children." (1)

(1) Quotation taken from the book Jennie Lee: A Life by Patricia Hollis, Oxford University Press, 1998.
 
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We know from cabinet minutes that Selina Cooper, the Minister of Health, argued in favour of Lee's amendment in cabinet. Although she was in the minority, she did not resign. She also supported the campaign for family allowances.

Cooper's Housing Act 1929, named for Selina Cooper, increased the subsidy per house from £8 to £9 per year for forty years, for houses built to rent only at controlled rents subsidised by local councils, It also provided for subsidies for slum clearance based on the number of families rehoused. Local authorities were instructed to produce five-year plans for slum clearance. (1)

The Southport by-election, caused by the death of John Brunner (Liberal) on 16 January 1929, was held on 21 February 1929. The percentage votes for each party were as follows (May 1928 general election)
Conservative: 46.1 (42.6)
Liberal: 40.1 (48.1)
Labour: 13.8 (9.3)
Conservative gain from Liberal.

Hugh Meyler (Blackpool - Liberal) died on 30 April 1929. The subsequent by-election was held on 6 June. The percentage votes were as follows:
Conservative: 42.9 (41.1)
Liberal: 37.7 (44.8)
Labour: 19.4 (14.1)
Conservative gain from Liberal.

The by-election in Totnes caused by the death of Henry Vivian (Liberal) on 30 May 1929 took place on 4 July, and was a Conservative gain. The percentage votes were as follows:
Conservative: 47.1 (42.1)
Liberal: 40.5 (44.8)
Labour: 12.4 (9.9).

(1) This act was similar to the Housing Act 1924 and the Housing Act 1930 in OTL. See the book The Evolution of the British Welfare State: A History of Social Policy since the Industrial Revolution by Derek Fraser, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
 
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The Wall Street Crash happened in October 1929, as in OTL, and the world changed for ever. Unemployment in Britain rose from 1,273,000 in October 1929 to 1,503,000 in January 1930.

On 23 January 1930, Sir Oswald Mosley, the Postmaster-General sent a copy of his memorandum on the economic situation to the Prime Minister, Arthur Henderson. Among its proposals were the following: a large programme of public works, raising the school leaving age, increasing old age pensions, high tariffs on imports to protect British industries, nationalisation of the banks and major industries, encouraging British Empire trade by bulk purchasing.

Henderson wrote to Mosley. He thanked him for his memorandum and told him that the cabinet would discuss it at their next meeting. Mosley was not a cabinet minister. When the cabinet met towards the end of January, all ministers rejected import tariffs because they were committed to free trade, and nationalisation because Labour did not have a majority of seats in the House of Commons, and it would be opposed by the Conservative and Liberal parties. A majority agreed with the proposals on public works, school leaving age, pensions, and British Empire trade. However the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, rejected them because they would mean increased government expernditure, and he was committed to balanced budget. He resigned from the cabinet, and was joined by the Foreign Secretary, Ramsay MacDonald, and the Dominions Secretary, James Thomas. Mosley also resigned because only some of his proposals were approved by the cabinet.

After the resignations, Henderson made the following changes to his government:
William Graham from President of the Board of Trade to Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Hugh Dalton from Financial Secretary to the Treasury to President of the Board of Trade,
John Clynes from Lord Privy Seal to Foreign Secretary,
Thomas Johnston from Home Secretary to Lord Privy Seal,
William Lunn from Under Secretary Foreign Office to Dominions Secretary,
Vernon Hartshorn from Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to Home Secretary.
 
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The Lord Chancellor, Lord Sankey, and the Paymaster-General, Earl de la Warr, also resigned from the government. Henderson also made the following changes to his government:
Sir Henry Slesser KC promoted from Attorney-General to Lord Chancellor as Lord Slesser,
Sir James Melville KC from Solicitor-General to Attorney-General,
Stafford Cripps KC appointed Solicitor-General and given the customary knighthood,
John James Lawson from Under-Secretary Home Office to Financial Secretary to the Treasury,
Alfred Short from Parliamentary Secretary Board of Trade to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster,
Earl Russell from Under-Secretary India Office to Paymaster-General,
Herbert Morrison from Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Health to Postmaster-General,
Somerville Hastings appointed Parliamentary Secretary Ministry of Health. (1)

I have taken information about the Mosley Memorandum from Aneurin Bevan: Volume 1 1897-1945 by Michael Foot, London: Granada Publishing Ltd, 1975, Jennie Lee: A Life by Patricia Hollis, Oxford University Press, 1998, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oswald_Mosley, section headed Mosley Memorandum.

(1) For Hastings see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerville_Hastings.
 
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Stafford Cripps was elected Labour MP for Leeds South in a by-election on 27 March 1930. The Fulham West by-election on 6 May 1930 was a Conservative gain from Labour. The Bristol by-election on 2 September 1930, caused by the resignation of Beddoe Rees (Liberal) because he was declared bankrupt, was a Labour gain from Liberal. The Liberal candidate came third.

On 11 February 1931 the House of Commons debated a Conservative motion which called for strict economy in government expenditure. A Liberal amendment proposed the appointed of an independent committee to examine ways of reducing government spending. Speaking on behalf of the government, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Graham, said that it accepted the amendment, but reserved the right to reject any of its recommendations. The Conservative motion was defeated, but the Liberal amendment was passed. Graham appointed William Plender, Lord Plender, as chairman of the committee. (1) Besides the chairman. there were two Conservative, two Labour and two Liberal members of the committee.

(1) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Plender,_1st_Baron_Plender.
 
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The Empire Free Trade Crusade was founded by Lord Beaverbrook in July 1928 to oppose the minority Labour government elected in the general election in the previous May. (1) Also the policy of the Conservative Party leader, Austen Chamberlain, which they regarded as not being protectionist enough. They wanted "fiscal union of the Empire". They won the Paddington South by-election on 30 October 1930, caused by the death of Douglas King (Conservative). The Conservative candidate was Brendan Bracken. He was defeated by Labour in the adjacent Paddington North constituency in the 1928 general election.

The Shipley by-election on 6 November 1930, caused by the death of William Mackinder, was a Liberal gain from Labour. The percentage votes for each party were as follows (1928 general election):
Liberal: 38.0 (35.2)
Conservative: 32.8 (25.4)
Labour: 27.5 (39.4)
Communist: 1.7 (n/a).

Brendan Bracken was elected Conservative MP for Westminster St. George's in the by-election 19 March 1931, caused by the death of Laming Worthington-Evans (Conservative). Bracken's opponent was a candidate supported by the Empire Free Trade Crusade.

The by-election in the two-member constituency of Sunderland, caused by the death of Alfred Smith (Labour), took place on 26 March 1931. It was a Liberal gain from Labour. The percentage votes for each party were as follows (1928 election both candidates for each party):
Elizabeth Morgan (2) Liberal: 36.2 (34.5)
Labour: 32.7 (35.6)
Conservative: 31.1 (29.9).

(1) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_Free_Trade_Crusade.

(2) For Morgan see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Morgan_(politician). She was 26 years old and the youngest MP.
 
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