The 1984 Stafford by-election was a parliamentary by-election held on 3 May 1984 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 An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

Stafford Stafford () is a market town and the county town of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It lies about north of Wolverhampton, south of Stoke-on-Trent and northwest of Birmingham. The town had a population of 70,145 in t ...

Previous MP

The seat fell vacant when the constituency's 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), Major Sir Hugh Charles Patrick Joseph Fraser

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(23 January 1918 – 6 March 1984) died. Fraser was then one of Parliament’s most senior members, having served over 38 years in the House of Commons. Fraser was educated at Ampleforth College,

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the f ...

, where he was President of the Oxford Union, and at the Sorbonne. He was commissioned into the

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in 1936 and during

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saw service in

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and

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; he retired in the 1950s with the rank of

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

. Fraser was elected Member of Parliament for Stone in 1945, later Stafford and Stone following constituency boundary changes, from 1950 until 1983, and then

until his death.

Candidates

Four candidates were nominated. The list below is set out in descending order of the number of votes received at the by-election. 1. The Conservative candidate was William Nigel Paul Cash (born on 10 May 1940), a solicitor. He has served continuously in the House of Commons since winning the by-election (as of July 2017). Cash represented Stafford, until boundary changes took effect in 1997. Since then he has been returned as MP for Stone. 2. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, representing the SDP-Liberal Alliance, was David Joseph Dunn. He was a senior lecturer in International Relations, at the time of the by-election. He was born in 1946 and had contested the seat in the 1983 general election. 3. Michael John David Poulter was the Labour candidate. He worked as a senior probation officer and was born in 1942. He contested Stafford and Stone in 1979 and this constituency in 1983. 4. Christopher David Teasdale was an Independent, using the ballot paper label "Soon to be unemployed".

Votes

External links

Campaign literature from the by-election

Sources

* ''Britain Votes/Europe Votes By-Election Supplement 1983-'', compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Parliamentary Research Services 1985) {{By-elections to the 49th UK Parliament Stafford by-election Stafford by-election By-elections to the Parliament of the United Kingdom in Staffordshire constituencies Stafford 20th century in Staffordshire Stafford by-election

Previous MP

Candidates

Votes

See also

External links

Sources