The 1903 Barnard Castle by-election was a parliamentary by-election held for the

British House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 mem ...

constituency of Barnard Castle, in

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, on 24 July 1903.

Vacancy

The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Liberal MP, Sir Joseph Pease on 23 June 1903 at the age of 75. Pease had been MP for Barnard Castle since the 1885 general election, and before that one of the two MPs for South Durham since

1865 Events January–March * January 4 – The New York Stock Exchange opens its first permanent headquarters at Broad Street (Manhattan), 10-12 Broad near Wall Street, in New York City. * January 13 – American Civil War : Sec ...

Candidates

The Liberals selected Hubert Beaumont to succeed Pease. Beaumont had fought

King's Lynn King's Lynn, known until 1537 as Bishop's Lynn and colloquially as Lynn, is a port and market town in the borough of King's Lynn and West Norfolk in the county of Norfolk, England. It is located north of London, north-east of Peterborough, no ...

in 1895 and

Buckingham Buckingham ( ) is a market town in north Buckinghamshire, England, close to the borders of Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire, which had a population of 12,890 at the 2011 Census. The town lies approximately west of Central Milton Keynes, sou ...

in 1900. He would go on to become the MP for Eastbourne at the 1906 election. He was 39 years old at the election.

William Lyonel Vane William is a masculine given name of Norman French Norman or Norman French (, french: Normand, Guernésiais: , Jèrriais: ) is a Romance language which can be classified as one of the Oïl languages along with French, Picard and Walloon ...

was the Unionist candidate. Vane had fought the seat as the Unionist candidate in the

1895 Events January–March * January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. * January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Histor ...

and

1900 As of March 1 ( O.S. February 17), when the Julian calendar acknowledged a leap day and the Gregorian calendar did not, the Julian calendar fell one day further behind, bringing the difference to 13 days until February 28 ( O.S. February 15), 2 ...

elections. losing on both occasions in straight fights against Pease. He was 43 years old and was a colonel in the 6th Battalion, Durham Light Infantry. The Friendly Society of Iron Founders agreed to sponsor a Labour Representation Committee candidate. Arthur Henderson was selected, receiving 5,619 votes from their membership, defeating Robert Morley, who took only 1,411.David E. Martin, "Morley, Robert", ''Dictionary of Labour Biography'', vol. IX, pp. 225–227 Henderson was one of the delegates to the founding conference of the LRC in 1900, and had been elected Mayor of

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington underwen ...

earlier in 1903. He had previously worked as agent for Pease, and was also 39 years old.

Result

A crowd of 3,000 gathered in the market place at Barnard Castle on Saturday 26 July to hear that Henderson had beaten Vane by 47 votes, with Beaumont in third place.
Teesdale Mercury
'' 1900s Arthur Henderson MP

He was the first Labour candidate to win against both Liberal and Conservative opposition, becoming only the fifth Labour MP, joining Keir Hardie and Richard Bell, who had been elected at the 1900 election, David Shackleton who had been elected for Clitheroe in a by-election in 1902, and Will Crooks who had been elected for Woolwich in a by-election four months earlier.

Aftermath

Henderson would remain as MP for the division until

1918 This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...

, when he instead fought, and lost, the southern division of East Ham. He would serve three times as Leader of the Labour Party, and as both

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. H ...

and

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, as well as winning by-elections in four other constituencies.

Vacancy

Candidates

Result

Aftermath

References

See also