1923 United Kingdom general election
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All 615 seats in the House of Commons 308 seats needed for a majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 71.1%,  1.9% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Colours denote the winning party—as shown in § Results | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1923 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 6 December 1923. The Conservatives, led by Stanley Baldwin, won the most seats, but Labour, led by Ramsay MacDonald, and H. H. Asquith's reunited Liberal Party gained enough seats to produce a hung parliament. It was the last UK general election in which a third party (the Liberals) won more than 100 seats, or received more than 26% of the vote.
MacDonald formed the first ever Labour government with tacit support from the Liberals. Asquith's motivation for permitting Labour to enter power, rather than trying to bring the Liberals back into government, was that he hoped they would prove to be incompetent and quickly lose support. Being a minority, MacDonald's government only lasted ten months and another general election was held in October 1924.
Overview
In May 1923, Prime Minister Bonar Law fell ill and resigned on 22 May,[1] after just 209 days in office. He was replaced by Chancellor of the Exchequer, Stanley Baldwin.
Having won an election just the year before, Baldwin's Conservative Party had a comfortable majority in the House of Commons and could have waited another four years, but the government was concerned.
Baldwin felt the need to receive a mandate from the people, which, if successful, would strengthen his grip on the Conservative Party leadership.
Oxford historian (and Conservative MP) J.A.R. Marriott depicts the gloomy national mood:
The times were still out of joint. Mr. Baldwin had indeed succeeded in negotiating (January 1923) a settlement of the British debt to the United States, but on terms which involved an annual payment of £34 million, at the existing rate of exchange. The French remained in the Ruhr. Peace had not yet been made with Turkey; unemployment was a standing menace to national recovery; there was continued unrest among the wage-earners, and a significant strike among farm labourers in Norfolk.
Confronted by these difficulties, convinced that economic conditions in England called for a drastic change in fiscal policy, and urged thereto by the Imperial Conference of 1923, Mr. Baldwin decided to ask the country for a mandate for Preference and Protection.[2]
The result however backfired on Baldwin, who lost a host of seats to Labour and the Liberals; resulting in a hung parliament.
For the first time in history, Labour formed a government.
Results
| style="background:Template:Conservative Party (UK)/meta/color; width:42.0;" | 258 | style="background:Template:Labour Party (UK)/meta/color; width:31.1%;" | 191 | style="color:black; background:Template:Liberal Party (UK)/meta/color; width:25.7%;" | 158 | 8 |
| Conservative | Labour | Liberal | O |
| Candidates | Votes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Leader | Stood | Elected | Gained | Unseated | Net | % of total | % | No. | Net % | |
| Conservative | Stanley Baldwin | 536 | 258 | 23 | 109 | −86 | 41.95 | 38.0 | 5,286,159 | −0.5 | |
| Labour | Ramsay MacDonald | 427 | 191 | 64 | 15 | +49 | 31.06 | 30.7 | 4,267,831 | +1.0 | |
| Liberal | H. H. Asquith | 457 | 158 | 86 | 43 | +43 | 25.69 | 29.7 | 4,129,922 | +0.9 | |
| Nationalist | Joseph Devlin | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.487 | 0.4 | 54,157 | N/A | |
| Independent | N/A | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | −1 | 0.325 | 0.3 | 36,802 | −0.5 | |
| Communist | Albert Inkpin | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | −1 | 0.2 | 34,258 | 0.0 | ||
| Belfast Labour | David Robb Campbell | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.2 | 22,255 | N/A | ||
| Independent Labour | N/A | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | −1 | 0.2 | 17,331 | 0.0 | ||
| Independent Liberal | N/A | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0.1 | 16,184 | 0.0 | ||
| Constitutionalist | N/A | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | −1 | 0.1 | 15,500 | 0.0 | ||
| Ind. Conservative | N/A | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | −3 | 0.1 | 15,171 | −0.8 | ||
| Scottish Prohibition | Edwin Scrymgeour | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0.1 | 12,877 | 0.0 | ||
| Christian Pacifist | N/A | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0.0 | 570 | N/A | ||
Votes summary
Seats summary
Constituency results
Transfers of seats
- All comparisons are with the 1922 election.
- In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
- In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1923. Such circumstances are marked with a †.
See also
Notes
- ^ This represents the joint total of the Liberals and the National Liberals in the 1922 election. The two parties reunified for the 1923 election.
- ^ All parties shown. Conservatives include Ulster Unionists. Liberal total is compared to joint total of Liberals and National Liberals in 1922.
References
- ^ Archived copy, archived from the original on 25 August 2008, retrieved 31 July 2008
{{citation}}: Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Marriott 1948, p. 517; Doerr, p. 75–76.
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 8 July 2014. Retrieved 23 May 2014.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|dead-url=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
Sources
- Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
- Doerr, Paul W., British foreign policy 1919–1939[publisher missing][year missing]
- Marriott, J. A. R., Modern England: 1885–1945 (1948 ed.)
Further reading
- Cook, Chris P. (1969), "Wales and the General Election of 1923", Welsh History Review, 4 (4): 393–4
- Craig, F. W. S., ed. (1975), British General Election Manifestos, 1900-74
- Irwin, Douglas A. (1995), Industry or Class Cleavages over Trade Policy? Evidence from the British General Election of 1923 (PDF), National Bureau of Economic Research
- Self, Robert (1992), "Conservative reunion and the general election of 1923: a reassessment", Twentieth Century British History, 3 (3): 249–273
- Smart, Nick (1996), "Baldwin's Blunder? The General Election of 1923", Twentieth Century British History, 7 (1): 110–139
