The 1903 Rye by-election was a
by-election
A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...
held in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
on 17 March 1903 for the
House of Commons constituency of the
Rye or Eastern Division of
Sussex
Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...
.
Vacancy
The by-election was caused by the resignation of the sitting
Conservative Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP)
Arthur Montagu Brookfield
Arthur Montagu Brookfield, KGStJ (18 March 1853 – 3 March 1940) was a British Army officer, diplomat, author and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1885 to 1903.
Biography
Brookfield was the son of Rev. William Henry ...
. Brookfield had been MP for Rye since
1885
Events
January–March
* January 3– 4 – Sino-French War – Battle of Núi Bop: French troops under General Oscar de Négrier defeat a numerically superior Qing Chinese force, in northern Vietnam.
* January 4 – ...
but he resigned in order to take up the post of
HM Consul in
Montevideo
Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...
.
Candidates
The Conservatives and Unionists selected 54-year-old
Edward Boyle who was a
barrister
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching law and ...
and
King’s Counsel
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister or a ...
, as their candidate. Boyle had unsuccessfully contested
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
at the
1900 general election and had his country seat at
Hurst Green in the then Rye constituency.
The
Liberals chose
Charles Frederick Hutchinson, a 53-year-old
medical doctor
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
who had retired to Sussex. Hutchinson had been their candidate against Arthur Brookfield at the 1900 general election.
Campaign
The opposing candidates adopted classic by-election positions. Boyle defending the Conservative government record, Hutchinson attacking it. One newspaper reported Boyle making his chief appeal ‘on general grounds’. Rye was a largely rural seat and Boyle chose to focus on agricultural issues praising the Agricultural Rates Act of 1896, which had led to the de-rating of farm land, as a step in the right direction and promising to keep up Brookfield’s campaign to press legislative proposals for the defence of the
hop
A hop is a type of jump.
Hop or hops may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* ''Hop'' (film), a 2011 film
* Hop! Channel, an Israeli TV channel
* ''House of Payne'', or ''HOP'', an American sitcom
* Lindy Hop, a swing dance of the 1920s and ...
industry. On the controversial issue of education, following the
1902 Education Act
The Education Act 1902 ( 2 Edw. 7 c. 42), also known as the Balfour Act, was a highly controversial Act of Parliament that set the pattern of elementary education in England and Wales for four decades. It was brought to Parliament by a Conservat ...
, Boyle took the view that, while this was not a perfect piece of legislation, it was an honest attempt to deal with a difficult matter. Boyle also took a stand against
Irish Home Rule
The Irish Home Rule movement was a movement that campaigned for Devolution, self-government (or "home rule") for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It was the dominant political movement of Irish nationalism from 1 ...
stating he was ‘absolutely against a separate Parliament for Ireland’.
Hutchinson by contrast described the Education Act as a gross injustice to
non-conformists and relied on appeals to religion elsewhere in his campaign calling for the maintenance of the
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
character of the
Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
. In this he was supported by the receipt of a letter from the Reverend
R J Campbell, of the
City Temple and one of the country’s leading non-conformist clergy. The letter urged voters to return Liberal candidates such as Hutchinson to Parliament with a view to a speedy reversal of the current education policy. This focus on religion may have served Hutchinson particularly well at this time as
the Weald was said to be one of the few significant pockets of Nonconformity in the rural
Home Counties.
As a Liberal, it was not surprising when Hutchinson came out in support of Irish Home Rule.
On foreign policy, Hutchinson declared himself against European complications and alliances. As a
Liberal Imperialist The Liberal Imperialists were a faction within the British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party around 1900 regarding the policy toward the British Empire. They supported the Boer War which most Liberals opposed, and wanted the Empire ruled on a more ...
he no doubt saw the future in the context of the
British Empire
The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...
. He supported the
taxation of land values,
licensing reform, the extension of
smallholding
A smallholding or smallholder is a small farm operating under a small-scale agriculture model. Definitions vary widely for what constitutes a smallholder or small-scale farm, including factors such as size, food production technique or technology ...
s and one man one vote. At a conference held at
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
by the Sussex Women’s Liberal Association, he promised to support a
Bill
Bill(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States)
* Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature
* Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer
* Bill, a bird or animal's beak
Plac ...
for
women's suffrage
Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...
.
Election incidents
The election turned nasty at some points. A Conservative procession at
Battle
A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and force ...
was attacked by stone and bottle throwers and torches were wrested from their bearers. It was reported that many people were injured. On the other side however a Liberal meeting at
Rye
Rye (''Secale cereale'') is a grass grown extensively as a grain, a cover crop and a forage crop. It is a member of the wheat tribe (Triticeae) and is closely related to both wheat (''Triticum'') and barley (genus ''Hordeum''). Rye grain is u ...
was cut short owing to what was described as an onslaught by young Tories and one of Hutchinson’s meetings at
Burwash
Burwash, archaically known as Burghersh, is a rural village and civil parish in the Rother district of East Sussex, England. Situated in the High Weald of Sussex some 15 miles (24 km) inland from the port of Hastings, it is located five m ...
was similarly infiltrated and disrupted by Boyle’s supporters.
Boyle also suffered a couple of setbacks when his motor cars broke down. It was reported that on Friday 13 March (perhaps inevitably on such a date) that he met with his second motor accident, being left stranded on a country road with the
induction coil
An induction coil or "spark coil" (archaically known as an inductorium or Ruhmkorff coil after Heinrich Rühmkorff) is a type of electrical transformer used to produce high-voltage pulses from a low-voltage direct current (DC) supply. p.98 To ...
out of
gear
A gear is a rotating circular machine part having cut teeth or, in the case of a cogwheel or gearwheel, inserted teeth (called ''cogs''), which mesh with another (compatible) toothed part to transmit (convert) torque and speed. The basic pr ...
.
Result
The result was a win for Hutchinson and the Liberal Party.
Rye was a typical mid-term by-election result with public opinion turning against the party in office. It seems that Boyle had been right to try and focus on agricultural issues as one commentator has noted that the
import duty on
corn
Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. Th ...
(which had been introduced as a
Boer War
The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...
revenue measure in the 1902
budget
A budget is a calculation play, usually but not always financial, for a defined period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including time, costs and expenses, environmenta ...
) was a factor in this and other by-election upsets of the day.
One decisive factor in Hutchinson’s victory may however simply have been better organisation than that of the Unionists. It was reported a week before polling that the Conservative agents seemed complacent and were taking a laissez-faire approach to electioneering. It was noted that they had not held as many meetings as expected and could do with more outside assistance from agents who knew their jobs. It was also reported that the Liberals held 25 meetings across the constituency on the eve of poll, supported by a dozen Members of Parliament. This compared with the Tories holding between 12 and 20 eve of poll events, depending on which reports were most accurate, with about six MPs. If there was any sense of complacency in the Conservative camp this presumably flowed from the fact that Rye had long been one of their stronghold seats. However the Tory election agent at least had sensed the danger as he told supporters that a very determined effort was being made by what he called the Radical party to win the seat and he complained that he had had to deal with a mass of misrepresentation and false statements, accusing the Liberals of even circulating untrue statements about Mr Boyle’s religious views.
What is clear is that the Liberals had never previously made such a sustained effort to capture the seat. Complaints were made that they had brought in a number of professional outside agents, paid by other local Liberal associations or by headquarters in
Parliament Street, payments to whom were unlikely to be included in the official election expense returns. The press expected questions to be put to the
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general.
In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
on the legality or otherwise of this practice.
Aftermath
Hutchinson held the seat until
1906
Events
January–February
* January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...
when the Rye reverted to its more usual Conservative representation. After his defeat by
George Courthope, Hutchinson did not stand for Parliament again.
[F W S Craig, ''British Parliamentary Election Results, 1885-1918''; Macmillan Press, 1974 p407]
Boyle was elected in 1906 as MP for
Taunton
Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England, with a 2011 population of 69,570. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century monastic foundation, Taunton Castle, which later became a priory. The Normans built a castle owned by the ...
, but held the seat for only 3 years, until his death in 1909 at the age of 60.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rye By-Election, 1903
1903 elections in the United Kingdom
By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in East Sussex constituencies
1903 in England
Rye, East Sussex
20th century in East Sussex