Sheffield Attercliffe by-election, 1909

[Devil Wincarnate]

Aug 17, 2015 13:46:59 GMT ColinJ said:

This is a marvellous thread. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

I hope there will many more threads of this type.

[Deleted]

Aug 17, 2015 21:52:11 GMT Devil Wincarnate said:

Aug 17, 2015 13:46:59 GMT ColinJ said:

This is a marvellous thread. Thank you to everyone who has contributed.

I hope there will many more threads of this type.

Perhaps sometime I will get the chance to do some in-depth research into the Shipley by-election of 1930. There were also by-elections in 1910 and 1915, but they returned unopposed (Liberal) MPs.

[finsobruce]

Aug 17, 2015 11:49:23 GMT David Ashforth said:

Aug 16, 2015 22:47:25 GMT finsobruce said:

And Hurrah for the Tory Chicken!!

Eh?

Possibly chicken meant something different in 1909. Possibly Arnold Muir Wilson was rather eccentric.

I have the answer. A quick dive into the digitized newspapers finds Mr A M Wilson speaking at meetings for Mr Wortley (Charles Stuart-Wortley, Tory MP for Sheffield 1880-85 and Sheffield Hallam 1885-1916) during the 1886 general election. At one, so the Sheffield Independent reported on the 8th of July, Mr Wilson explains to the audience how he came to be known as the "Tory Chicken". When standing for the Town council some years previously a voter had not put a cross on the paper but written "Hurrah for the Tory Chicken!" instead. The Returning Officer refused to count it as a vote for him. Accounts of other meetings indicate that the audiences called on him to speak using the name.   I have also found a reference in a Liverpool paper in 1861 in which a correspondent hopes that they will soon see "The Liberal Cock deal with the Tory Chicken" which indicates it may have been a phrase of longer standing......

[David Ashforth]

Aug 17, 2015 22:22:56 GMT swanarcadian said:

Perhaps sometime I will get the chance to do some in-depth research into the Shipley by-election of 1930. There were also by-elections in 1910 and 1915, but they returned unopposed (Liberal) MPs.

There is a short article about the result of the 1930 Shipley by-election in The Glasgow Herald, November 8, 1930.

The Google Newspaper Archive has an (almost) complete archive of The Glasgow Herald (since 1806!) so there might be more about the by-election but I haven't looked.

There are, of course, other newspapers in the Archive but I don't think any other British newspapers have anything like as many editions uploaded.

[David Ashforth]

Nothing to do with the 1909 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election but I thought I'd post this here

The Sheffield Independent, 2nd September 1899.  The Sheffield Independent was at this time a Liberal supporting newspaper and the Sheffield Telegraph a Conservative supporting one.

[David Ashforth]

I found this information about the 1909 Sheffield Attercliffe by-election in Helen Mathers'  Sheffield Municipal Politics 1893-1926: Parties, Personalities and the Rise of Labour

…the campaign was greatly helped by the presence of two Conservative candidates, and by the refusal of the City Council to allow the May Day Demonstration to be held in any of the city's parks. Attercliffe Recreation Ground had to be used instead, and so "a great Labour gathering was held in the heart of the constituency on the very eve of the election ......... the meeting probably won Attercliffe for Labour." <sup>1 

1</sup> Sheffield Trades and Labour Council, Annual Report No. 6 (1909/1910)

YL J.G.Harston
Mathers' thesis includes some outline ward maps and information about the number of councillors by party for each ward.

[David Ashforth]

[David Ashforth]

Attercliffe, Sheffield: The Rise of Labour Examined in Two By-Elections, 1894–1909 by David Vessey