January 1910 United Kingdom general election

"February 1910 general election" redirects here. For the Finnish election, see 1910 Finnish parliamentary election.

January 1910 United Kingdom general election

15 January – 10 February 1910 (1910-01-15 – 1910-02-10)
All 670 seats in the House of Commons 336 seats needed for a majority
Registered	7,694,741
Turnout	6,234,435 86.8% (3.6 pp)
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 397 seats, 48.9% 156 seats, 43.4% 82 seats, 0.6% Seats before 373 168 83 Seats won 274 272 71 Seat change 123 116 11 Popular vote 2,712,511 2,919,236 74,047 Percentage 43.5% 46.8% 1.2% Swing 5.4 pp 3.4 pp 0.6 pp   Fourth party Fifth party   Leader Arthur Henderson William O'Brien Party Labour All-for-Ireland Leader since 22 January 1908 March 1909 Leader's seat Barnard Castle North East Cork Last election 29 seats, 4.8% Did not contest Seats before 45 Seats won 40 8 Seat change 11 8 Popular vote 435,770 23,605 Percentage 7.0% 0.4% Swing 2.2 pp 0.4 pp
Colours denote the winning party
Composition of the House of Commons following the election.
Prime Minister before election H. H. Asquith Liberal Prime Minister after election H. H. Asquith Liberal

The January 1910 UK general election was held from 15 January to 10 February 1910 to elect all 670 members of the House of Commons. Called amid a constitutional crisis after the Conservative-dominated House of Lords rejected the People's Budget, the Liberal government, seeking a mandate, lost their majority.

The result was a hung parliament: Arthur Balfour’s Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies won the most votes, but Asquith’s Liberals secured the most seats, edging out the Conservatives by two. With Irish Parliamentary Party support, Asquith remained in power. Another election followed in December.

The Labour Party, led by Arthur Henderson, returned 40 MPs. Much of this apparent increase (from the 29 Labour MPs elected in 1906) came from the defection, a few years earlier, of Lib Lab MPs from the Liberal Party to Labour.

Results

UK General Election January 1910

			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Stood	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
	Conservative and Liberal Unionist	Arthur Balfour	594	272	130	14	+116	40.6	46.8	2,919,236	+3.4
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	511	274	12	135	−123	40.9	43.5	2,712,511	−5.4
	Labour	Arthur Henderson	78	40	17	6	+11	6.0	7.0	435,770	+2.1
	Irish Parliamentary	John Redmond	85	71	0	11	−11	10.6	1.2	74,047	+0.6
	All-for-Ireland	William O'Brien	10	8	8	0	+8	1.2	0.4	23,605
	Ind. Nationalist	N/A	10	3	3	2	+2	0.5	0.3	16,533
	Social Democratic Federation	H. M. Hyndman	9	0	0	0	0		0.2	13,479	−0.1
	Ind. Conservative	N/A	4	1	1	1	0	0.1	0.2	11,772
	Free Trader	John Eldon Gorst	4	0	0	0	0		0.2	11,553
	Independent Labour	N/A	6	0	0	1	−1		0.2	9,936
	Independent Liberal	N/A	3	1	1	0	+1	0.1	0.1	5,237
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	0	0	0	0		0.0	756

Total votes cast: 6,234,435.
Electorate: 7,694,741 (7,201,029 in contested seats)
Turnout: 86.8%

Voting summary

Popular vote

Conservative & Liberal Unionist			46.82%
Liberal			43.51%
Labour			6.99%
Irish Parliamentary			1.19%
All-for-Ireland			0.38%
Others			1.11%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats

Liberal			40.90%
Conservative and Liberal Unionist			40.60%
Irish Parliamentary			10.60%
Labour			5.97%
All-for-Ireland			1.19%
Others			0.75%

Aftermath

Liberals had to rely on the Irish Parliamentary Party and Labour for their parliamentary majority. As the price for their continued support, the Irish nationalists demanded measures to remove the Lords' veto so that they could no longer block Irish Home Rule. The Lords accepted the electoral mandate and approved the People's Budget on 28 April 1910, but contention between the government and the Lords continued throughout the year. The government called a further election in December 1910 to get a mandate for the Parliament Act 1911, which would prevent the House of Lords from permanently blocking legislation.

See also

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

Election poster from "Labour Party and Democratic League" (a faction of the British Labour Party)

References

• Blewett, Neal (1972), The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910, Palgrave Macmillan London, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-00652-6
• Clarke, P. F. (1975), "The electoral position of the Liberal and Labour parties, 1910–1914", English Historical Review, 90 (357): 828–836, doi:10.1093/ehr/xc.ccclvii.828
• Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
• O'Brien, Phillips Payson (2010), "The 1910 Elections and the Primacy of Foreign Policy", in Mulligan, William; Simms, Brendan (eds.), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 249–259
• Pelling, Henry (1967), Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910
• Sykes, Alan (1979), Tariff Reform in British Politics: 1903–1913, Oxford University Press
• Sykes, Alan (1975), "The Confederacy and the purge of the Unionist free traders, 1906–1910", Historical Journal, 18 (2): 349–366, doi:10.1017/S0018246X00023724
• Wald, Kenneth D. (1978), "Class and the vote before the first world war", British Journal of Political Science, 8 (4): 441–457, doi:10.1017/S0007123400001496

External links

• Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results
• United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979 Archived 30 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine

Manifestos

• January 1910 Conservative manifesto
• January 1910 Labour manifesto
• January 1910 Liberal manifesto