Really Small Question...

Hey Guys,

Could someone help me with a By-Election? I need to find a third candidate for the 1918 Clapham By-Election who could split the Conservatives vote and thus allow Henry Beamish the seat in that Constituency. It preferably needs to be someone who's against Protectionism and also isn't too xenophobic and so could easily split the Conservative vote. It needs to be someone in a party or with views that can't affect Beamish's vote count to much.

The main point of this is to allow for someone to split the vote and have Beamish win the constituency. As I said a minor question.

Thanks to anyone who can help :)
 
Just very briefly passing through and saw the EdTsignal was lit...

John Battley maybe? He was MP OTL in 1945 and had lived in the area all his life. He could stand for the ILP or as an Independent Labour candidate. Local businessman, knows the area well, can go on about temperance and would disapprove of Beamish something rotten. He's never going to win a seat like Clapham in 1918, but he might scoop up whatever sandal-wearing, (Manchester) Guardian-reading muesli eaters who OTL held their noses and voted for Greer.

So let's say Battley stands, lambasts Beamish for being beastly and Greer for being a carpetbagger with no interest in Clapham (fair enough, considering Greer stood for Wells that year). He gets a bit of momentum as people go for the local boy, Greer's campaign sags and lets a few more votes slip to Beamish and a few to general apathy, and the final result is very tight;

Beamish- 3559
Greer- 3530
Battley- 702
Total Votes Cast-7791

Beamish has a majority of 29 votes and gets in, god help us all. Hopefully he will do something fun with Horatio Bottomley...
 
Just very briefly passing through and saw the EdTsignal was lit...

John Battley maybe? He was MP OTL in 1945 and had lived in the area all his life. He could stand for the ILP or as an Independent Labour candidate. Local businessman, knows the area well, can go on about temperance and would disapprove of Beamish something rotten. He's never going to win a seat like Clapham in 1918, but he might scoop up whatever sandal-wearing, (Manchester) Guardian-reading muesli eaters who OTL held their noses and voted for Greer.

So let's say Battley stands, lambasts Beamish for being beastly and Greer for being a carpetbagger with no interest in Clapham (fair enough, considering Greer stood for Wells that year). He gets a bit of momentum as people go for the local boy, Greer's campaign sags and lets a few more votes slip to Beamish and a few to general apathy, and the final result is very tight;

Beamish- 3559
Greer- 3530
Battley- 702
Total Votes Cast-7791

Beamish has a majority of 29 votes and gets in, god help us all. Hopefully he will do something fun with Horatio Bottomley...
Good God man you're a God. I don't know how you're so good at this but bloody 'ell you're great :) Thank you :) And this is all helping towards a TL I'm doing with a much further right Britain by 1935.

Seeing as you seem to have a large pool of knowledge for this may I PM you occasionally if I need help?
 
Glad to be of help, and yes, by all means PM away. Got to warn you though, after next week response times may be a little slow until early May or thereabouts as work is getting increasingly hectic. Will certainly do my best to help mind...
 
Another minor question for anyone that's able to reply (I only just read your reply EdT,) who in 1918 could be a candidate to split the Conservative vote in Paddington North and thus allow for a National Party victory there? I was thinking a local boy but I'm awful at researching for things like that. The OTL results were as follows:
- Conservative - William Perring - 5,759 - (33.4%)
- National Party - Captain Gordon Aston - 4,029 - (23.4%)
- Silver Badge Party - Lt-Col. E. P. Barry - 3,571 - (20.7%)
- Liberal - Leonard Franklin - 1,831 - (10.6%)
- Independent Labour - Herbert Bundy - 1,275 - (7.4%)
- Independent Labour - Arthur Strauss - 774 - (4.5%)


Thanks for anyone who can help :)
 
The turnout in the Clapham by-election on 21 June 1918 was only 33.3% compared with 76.1% in the December 1910 general election. So there were a lot of abstentions. In OTL the total vote in the by-election was 7, 843, (Greer 4,512, Beamish 3,331) so having a third candidate might have pushed up the turnout by a few percentage points. In December 1910 the Liberals polled 7,639 votes or 44.4% of the total vote. So in the by-election John Battley could pick up somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of those votes.

One candidate who could stand in the Paddington, North constituency in the 1918 general election and split the Conservative vote is John Henry Clarke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Clarke .
He was a homeopathic doctor with his own clinic in Piccadilly. Also he was Chairman and Vice-President of the Britons, a right-wing anti-semitic and anti-immigration political group founded in July 1919 by Henry Beamish, and helped it to work with the right-wing of the Conservative Party. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Britons .
 
The turnout in the Clapham by-election on 21 June 1918 was only 33.3% compared with 76.1% in the December 1910 general election. So there were a lot of abstentions. In OTL the total vote in the by-election was 7, 843, (Greer 4,512, Beamish 3,331) so having a third candidate might have pushed up the turnout by a few percentage points. In December 1910 the Liberals polled 7,639 votes or 44.4% of the total vote. So in the by-election John Battley could pick up somewhere between a fifth and a quarter of those votes.

One candidate who could stand in the Paddington, North constituency in the 1918 general election and split the Conservative vote is John Henry Clarke: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_Clarke .
He was a homeopathic doctor with his own clinic in Piccadilly. Also he was Chairman and Vice-President of the Britons, a right-wing anti-semitic and anti-immigration political group founded in July 1919 by Henry Beamish, and helped it to work with the right-wing of the Conservative Party. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Britons .
The only problem I can see with Clarke is that he was also Xenophobic, which could've split the National Party vote as well. And though in my upcoming TL it'd be good to have another member of 'The Britons' in parliament I really need a National Party candidate in. But thanks anyway :)
 
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