December 1910 United Kingdom general election

December 1910 United Kingdom general election

3–19 December 1910 (1910-12-03 – 1910-12-19)
All 670 seats in the House of Commons 336 seats needed for a majority
First party Second party Third party   Leader H. H. Asquith Arthur Balfour John Redmond Party Liberal Conservative and Liberal Unionist Irish Parliamentary Leader since 30 April 1908 11 June 1902 6 February 1900 Leader's seat East Fife City of London Waterford City Last election 274 seats, 43.5% 272 seats, 46.8% 71 seats, 1.2% Seats won 272 271 74 Seat change 2 1 3 Popular vote 2,157,256 2,270,753 90,416 Percentage 44.2% 46.6% 1.9% Swing 0.7% 0.3% 0.7%   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader George Barnes William O'Brien Party Labour All-for-Ireland Leader since 14 February 1910 23 March 1909 Leader's seat Glasgow Blackfriars & Hutchesontown Cork City Last election 40 seats, 7.0% 8 seats, 0.4% Seats won 42 8 Seat change 2 Popular vote 309,963 30,322 Percentage 6.4% 0.6% Swing 0.6% 0.2%
Colours denote the winning party
Prime Minister before election H. H. Asquith Liberal Appointed Prime Minister H. H. Asquith Liberal

The December 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 3 to 19 December. It was the last general election to be held over several days and the last to be held prior to the First World War (1914–18).

The political context was the effort of the new Liberal government to pass its budget, with higher taxes on the wealthy. It was blocked by the House of Lords. The Government called an election to get a mandate for the Parliament Act 1911, which would prevent the House of Lords from permanently blocking legislation. After the Liberals, together with the Irish Nationalists and Labour, retained their Commons majority, the House of Lords gave way and the budget was passed.

The Conservatives, led by Arthur Balfour with their Liberal Unionist allies, and the Liberals, led by H. H. Asquith, could not break the deadlock produced in the January general election, with the Conservatives again winning the largest number of votes. The Liberal Party under Asquith formed a government with the support of the Irish Nationalists. This was the last election in which the Liberals won the highest number of seats in the House of Commons. It was also the last United Kingdom national election in which a party other than Labour or the Conservatives won the most seats until the 2014 European Parliament elections.

Results

England and Wales seat winners

↓ 

style="color:black; background:Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color; width:40.6%%;" | 272	style="background:Template:Conservative and Liberal Unionist/meta/color; width:40.5%;" | 271	style="color:black; background:Template:Irish Parliamentary Party/meta/color; width:11.0%;" | 74	style="background:Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color; width:6.3%;" | 42	style="color:black; background:Template:All-for-Ireland League/meta/color; width:1.2%;" | 8	3
Liberal	Conservative	IPP	Lab	AFI	O

UK General Election December 1910

			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative and Liberal Unionist	Arthur Balfour	548	271			−1	40.4	46.6	2,270,753	−0.3
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	467	272			−2	40.6	44.2	2,157,256	+0.7
	Labour	George Barnes	56	42	5	3	+2	6.3	6.4	309,963	−0.6
	Irish Parliamentary	John Redmond	81	74	5	2	+3	11.0	1.9	90,416	+0.7
	All-for-Ireland	William O'Brien	21	8	2	2	0	1.2	0.6	30,322	+0.2
	Social Democratic Federation	H. M. Hyndman	2	0	0	0	0		0.1	5,733	−0.1
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	4	1	1	1	0	0.1	0.1	4,647
	Independent Labour	N/A	4	0	0	0	0		0.1	3,492
	Independent Liberal	N/A	1	0	0	1	−1		0.0	1,946
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	913
	Independent Nationalist	N/A	4	2	0	1	−1	0.3	0.0	911
	Independent	N/A	2	0	0	0	0		0.0	57

Total votes cast: 4,876,409.

Voting summary

Popular vote Conservative and Liberal Unionist   46.57% Liberal   44.23% Labour   6.36% Irish Parliamentary   1.85% Independent   0.23% Others   0.78%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats Liberal   40.6% Conservative and Liberal Unionist   40.5% Labour   6.3% Irish Parliamentary   11.0% All-for-Ireland   1.2% Independent   0.5%

List of MPs who lost their seat in the 1910 United Kingdom general election

This is a list of MPs who lost their seat at the December 1910 United Kingdom general election

Party		Name	Constituency	Office held whilst in Parliament	Year elected	Defeated by	Party
rowspan=24 style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal	Alfred Scott	Ashton-under-Lyne		1906	Max Aitken	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Sir William Crossley, 1st Baronet		Altrincham		1906	John Robert Kebty-Fletcher	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Charles Buxton		Ashburton		January 1910	Ernest Fitzroy Morrison-Bell	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Henry Vivian		Birkenhead		January 1910	Alfred Bigland	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Frederick Verney		Buckingham, contesting Christchurch		1906	Henry Page Croft	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Frederick Hindle		Darwen		January 1910	John Rutherford	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Edward Hemmerde		East Denbighshire, contesting Portsmouth		1906	Lord Charles Beresford	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Arthur George Hooper		Dudley		1906	Arthur Griffith-Boscawen	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Geoffrey Howard		Eskdale		1906	Claude Lowther	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
John Hope		West Fife		1900	William Adamson	style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour
Thomas Wing		Grimsby		January 1910	George Doughty	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Liberal Unionist
Oswald Partington		High Peak		1900	Samuel Hill-Wood	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
David Waterlow		Islington North		1906	George Touche	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Thomas Gibson Bowles		King's Lynn		January 1910	Holcombe Ingleby	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Max Muspratt		Liverpool Exchange		January 1910	Leslie Scott	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
John Rees		Montgomery		1906	Edward Pryce-Jones	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Charles Mallet		Plymouth	Financial Secretary to the War Office (1910)	1906	Waldorf Astor	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Aneurin Williams		Plymouth		January 1910	Arthur Benn	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
James Duncan Millar		St Andrews Burghs		January 1910	William Anstruther-Gray	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Liberal Unionist
Thomas Glover		St Helens		1906	Rigby Swift	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Sir William Collins		St Pancras West		1906	Felix Cassel	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Hugh Luttrell		Tavistock		1906	John Spear	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Liberal Unionist
Francis Layland-Barratt		Torquay		1906	Charles Forbes-Leith	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Liberal Unionist
Arthur Crosfield		Warrington		1906	Harold Smith	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
rowspan=19 style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative	Robert Bingham Brassey	Banbury		January 1910	Eustace Fiennes	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Walter Attenborough		Bedford		January 1910	Frederick Kellaway	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Gerald Arbuthnot		Burnley		January 1910	Philip Morrell	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Vere Ponsonby		Cheltenham		January 1910	Richard Mathias	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
William Foot Mitchell		Dartford		January 1910	James Rowlands	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Bonar Law		Dulwich, contesting Manchester North West	Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (1902-1905)	1900	George Kemp	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Henry Duke		Exeter		January 1910	Harold St Maur	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Langton Brackenbury		Louth		January 1910	Timothy Davies	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Harry Foster		Lowestoft		January 1910	Edward Beauchamp	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Arthur Colefax		Manchester South West		January 1910	Christopher Thomas Needham	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
George Henry Verrall		Newmarket		January 1910	Charles Day Rose	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Henry Gooch		Peckham		1908	Albion Richardson	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Charles Dillwyn-Venables-Llewellyn		Radnorshire		January 1910	Sir Francis Edwards, 1st Baronet	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Samuel Ridley		Rochester		January 1910	Ernest Lamb	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Douglas Proby		Saffron Walden		January 1910	Cecil Beck	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
William Dunn		Southwark West		January 1910	Edward Anthony Strauss	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
Edward Brotherton		Wakefield		1902	Arthur Harold Marshall	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
John Arthur Jackson		Whitehaven		January 1910	Thomas Richardson	style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour
William Augustus Adam		Woolwich		January 1910	Will Crooks	style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour
rowspan=1 style="background-color: Template:Liberal Unionist Party/meta/color" |	Liberal Unionist	Thomas Calley	Cricklade		January 1910	Richard Lambert	style="background-color: Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Liberal
rowspan=2 style="background-color: Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Labour	James Seddon	Newton		1906	Roundell Palmer	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative
Henry Twist		Wigan		January 1910	Reginald Neville	style="background-color: Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color" |	Conservative

See also

• List of MPs elected in the December 1910 United Kingdom general election
• Parliamentary franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918

Further reading

• Blewett, Neal (1972), Peers, the Parties and the People: General Elections of 1910
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• Pelling, Henry (1967), Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910

External links

• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979

Manifestos

• December 1910 Conservative manifesto
• December 1910 Labour manifesto
• December 1910 Liberal manifesto