The 1922 United Kingdom general election was held on Wednesday 15 November 1922. It was won by the
Conservative Party
The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right.
Political parties called The Conservative P ...
, led by
Bonar Law, which gained an overall majority over the
Labour Party, led by
J. R. Clynes
John Robert Clynes (27 March 1869 – 23 October 1949) was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 35 years, and as Leader of the Labour Party (1921–1922), led the party in its breakthroug ...
, and a divided
Liberal Party.
This election is considered one of
political realignment, with the Liberal Party falling to third-party status. The Conservative Party went on to spend all but eight of the next forty-two years as the largest party in Parliament, and Labour emerged as the main competition to the Conservatives.
The election was the first not to be held in
Southern Ireland, due to the signing of the
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty ( ga , An Conradh Angla-Éireannach), commonly known in Ireland as The Treaty and officially the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was an agreement between the government of the ...
on 6 December 1921, under which Southern Ireland was to secede from the United Kingdom as a
Dominion
The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire.
"Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...
– the
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
– on 6 December 1922. This reduced the size of the House of Commons by nearly one hundred seats, when compared to the previous election.
Background
The Liberal Party had divided into two factions following the ousting of
H. H. Asquith
Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928), generally known as H. H. Asquith, was a British statesman and Liberal Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom ...
as Prime Minister in December 1916. From then until October 1922 the Conservatives had been in coalition with a Liberal faction (which later became the "
National Liberals") led by
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...
. Following the
Carlton Club meeting which led to the creating of the
1922 Committee, Lloyd George resigned as Prime Minister and Bonar Law formed a Conservative majority government.
Although still leader of the Liberal Party and a frequent public speaker, former Prime Minister Asquith was no longer a particularly influential figure in the national political debate, and he had played no part in the downfall of the Lloyd George coalition. Most attention was focused on Law and Lloyd George. Asquith's daughter
Violet Bonham-Carter, a prominent Liberal Party campaigner, likened the election to a contest between a man with
sleeping sickness (Bonar Law) and a man with
St Vitus Dance (Lloyd George).
Some of Lloyd George's National Liberals were not opposed by Conservative candidates (e.g. Winston Churchill, who was
defeated at Dundee nonetheless), while many leading Conservatives (e.g. former leaders
Arthur Balfour and Sir
Austen Chamberlain, and former Lord Chancellor
Lord Birkenhead) were not members of Bonar Law's government, and hoped to hold the balance of power after the election (comparisons were made with the
Peelite
The Peelites were a breakaway dissident political faction of the British Conservative Party from 1846 to 1859. Initially led by Robert Peel, the former Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader in 1846, the Peelites supported free trade whilst ...
group—the ousted Conservative front bench of the late 1840s and 1850s); this was not to be, as Bonar Law won an overall majority.
It was the first election at which Labour surpassed the combined strength of both Liberal parties in votes and seats. The election was also notable for Labour in that it saw future
Prime Minister
A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is ...
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, (3 January 18838 October 1967) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955. He was Deputy Prime Mini ...
elected as an MP for
Limehouse.
Some Liberal candidates stood calling for a reunited Liberal Party, while others appear to have backed both Asquith and Lloyd George. Few sources are able to agree on exact numbers, and even in contemporary records held by the two groups, some MPs were claimed for both sides. By one estimate, there were 29 seats where Liberals stood against one another. This is thought to have cost them at least 14 seats, 10 of them to Labour, so in theory a reunited Liberal Party would have been much closer to, and perhaps even ahead of, Labour in terms of seats. However, in reality the two factions were on poor terms, and Lloyd George was still hoping for a renewed coalition with the Conservatives.
Neither of the leaders of the two main parties succeeded in enjoying their achievement in the election for very long; within less than a month of the election, Clynes was defeated in a leadership challenge by former Labour leader
Ramsay MacDonald, while Bonar Law would only last a little over seven months as Prime Minister before being forced to step down due to a terminal illness, resulting in
Stanley Baldwin
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as prime minister on three occasions, ...
succeeding him as both party leader and Prime Minister. As a result, Bonar Law was the shortest-serving UK Prime Minister of the twentieth century. Parliament was dissolved on 26 October.
Party platforms
The Conservative Party offered continuity to the electorate. Bonar Law's election address stated:
The Labour Party proposed to nationalise the mines and railways, to impose a levy on financial capital, and to revise the peace treaties. It promised a higher standard of living for workers, higher wages, and better housing.
Results
Votes summary
Seats summary
Transfers of seats
* All comparisons are with the 1918 election.
** In some cases the change is due to the MP defecting to the gaining party. Such circumstances are marked with a *.
** In other circumstances the change is due to the seat having been won by the gaining party in a by-election in the intervening years, and then retained in 1922. Such circumstances are marked with a †.
:†
1 MP elected as an Anti-Waste League candidate at a 1921 by-election, but moved to the Conservatives for the 1922 election
See also
*
*
1922 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
*
1922 United Kingdom general election in Northern Ireland
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number), the natural number following 18 and preceding 20
* one of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (film), a 1987 science fiction film
Music ...
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
United Kingdom election results—summary results 1885–1979
Manifestos
1922 Conservative manifesto1922 Labour manifesto1922 Liberal manifesto
{{Bonar Law
General election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
General election
A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...
1922
Events
January
* January 7 – Dáil Éireann (Irish Republic), Dáil Éireann, the parliament of the Irish Republic, ratifies the Anglo-Irish Treaty by 64–57 votes.
* January 10 – Arthur Griffith is elected President of Dáil Éirean ...
November 1922 events
David Lloyd George