The

Keighley Keighley ( ) is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford. Keighley is north-west of Bradford city centre, north-west of ...

by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 27 October 1911. The constituency returned one

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 o ...

(MP) to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of Westminster, London. It alone possesses legislative suprema ...

, elected by the

first past the post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast thei ...

voting system.

Vacancy

The vacancy was caused by the death on 30 September 1911 of Sir John Brigg, who had been the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

MP for Keighley since 1895.

Electoral history

Candidates

*The Liberals chose 50 year-old Stanley Buckmaster to defend a seat the party had held since it was created in 1885. He had been Liberal MP for

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

until his defeat in January 1910. He had failed to regain Cambridge in December 1910. *The Conservative candidate was 60 year-old William Mitchell Acworth who had contested the seat as a

Liberal Unionist The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington (later the Duke of Devonshire) and Joseph Chamberlain, the party established a politic ...

in 1906 and January 1910, but did not contest the December 1910 elections. *Although a Socialist had stood here in 1906 and finished third, the Labour party had not contested the seat before. This time they chose to run a 34 year-old Scotsman,

William Crawford Anderson William Crawford Anderson (13 February 1877 – 25 February 1919) was a British socialist politician. Born in 1877 at Findon, Aberdeenshire, the name Crawford in fact does not appear on his birth certificate. His father Francis Anderson was a ...

as their candidate. Anderson had been Chairman of the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

since 1910.

Result

The by-election was held on 27 October. The seat was held for the Liberals by Stanley Buckmaster, who gained 39% of the vote and obtained a majority of 825 over a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

and a

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

candidate.

Aftermath

In 1913 Buckmaster was appointed Solicitor General and required to fight another by-election Anderson was elected MP for Sheffield Attercliffe in 1914. Acworth did not contest another election.

References

{{By-elections to the 30th UK Parliament 1911 in England 1911 elections in the United Kingdom Keighley By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Bradford constituencies 1910s in Yorkshire