Glasgow Herald: old Scottish council election results

[Deleted]

This may or may not be new to some of you, but editions of the Glasgow Herald dating between 1806 and 1990 are available as part of Google News Archives. This is therefore an ideal place to search for local election results (municipal, burgh, regional, council) in Scotland by ward: The Glasgow Herald always devoted a special page or two to the results.

I've added some links to facilitate searching (I've traced between 1967 and 1988 so far; 1967 was the year the Conservatives started contesting Scottish locals; previously the Progressives had pretty much stood on their behalf) along which page number(s) the results are on, so we know how far we need to scroll:

1967
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19670503&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

page 8

1968
news.google.com/newspapers?id=sG1AAAAAIBAJ&sjid=pqMMAAAAIBAJ&pg=576,1567826

page 12

1969
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19690507&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 8 & 9

1970
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19700506&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 8 & 9

1971
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19710505&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 10 & 11

1972
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19720503&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 2 & 3

1973
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19730502&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 1 & 3

1974
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19740509&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 8 & 9

1977
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19770504&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

page 8

1978
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19780503&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

page 5

1980
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19800502&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 8 & 9

1982
news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19820507&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 8 & 9

1984

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19840504&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 6 & 7

1986

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19860509&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

pages 12 & 13

1988

news.google.com/newspapers?id=2zpAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=U1kMAAAAIBAJ&pg=480,1240188

pages 10 & 11

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Apr 11, 2016 21:51:29 GMT swanarcadian said:

1967 was the year the Conservatives started contesting Scottish locals;

I understand the prime mover behind this decision was one Frederick Walter Scott Craig.

(Also note: ISBN 0900178299)

[Deleted]

The online Glasgow Herald really is an absolute gold mine for detailed ward results for old Scottish local elections.

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC

All you have to do, if searching before 1947, is search under the first Wednesday of every November, which was the day after polling day, zoom in and scroll to the right until you find the heading "municipal elections" which will be near the top. These go well back well before the 1889 Act. 

This is an excerpt from the edition of 2nd November 1859:

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=18591102&printsec=frontpage&hl=en

Many votes were given in some of the unopposed wards, which may be held as indicative of the very high favour in which the candidates were held. The Saltmarket adores Captain Taylor, as a sort of municipal Andrew Marvel, and they accordingly honoured him with 203 votes, while a dozen would have served the purpose.

[David Ashforth]

[Pete Whitehead]

Mr Tosh is appropriately named. I wonder if he lived to see how wrong he was in his closing comments

[Pete Whitehead]

Is it this fellow ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Tosh

[greatkingrat]

I assume so, he was the Liberal candidate in Ayr in October 1974, prior to joining the Conservatives.

[Deleted]

Murray Tosh was the Conservative candidate for Glasgow Hillhead in 1983, when Roy Jenkins' acceptance speech was drowned out by the crowd. He's stood next to the returning officer, and then Jenkins (3:00 onwards):

[Deleted]

It is certainly worth mentioning that the Herald offered decent summaries for English and Welsh local elections also (no ward by ward data as with Scotland, however). After 1948 and before 1972 in E&W they were usually held on the second Thursday in May, unless the 7th fell on a Thursday. Before 1948 it was on the first or second day of November. The bulk of results were available in the Herald's edition the day after polling days.

This was 1949 (including London borough councils), just to take an example - zoom across to page 5:

news.google.com/newspapers?nid=GGgVawPscysC&dat=19490513&printsec=frontpage&hl=en