William Henry Flanagan (8 April 1871 – 21 June 1944) was a British wadding and wool merchant and a

Conservative and Unionist Party The Conservative Party, officially the Conservative and Unionist Party and also known colloquially as the Tories, is one of the Two-party system, two main political parties in the United Kingdom, along with the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party. ...

politician. He was the

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) for Manchester Clayton twice, from 1922 to 1923 and from 1931 to 1935. Flanagan was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

on 8 April 1871, the son of Willian and Emma Flanagan. His father was a wadding manufacturer and Flanagan, who started as an apprentice, followed his father into the wadding business. He married Lilian Mary Ashley in 1899. On 15 January 1922

Edward Hopkinson Edward Hopkinson (28 May 1859 – 15 January 1922) was a British electrical engineer and Conservative politician. He was the fourth son of John Hopkinson, an engineer who was mayor of Manchester in 1882/83.''Obituary: A Great Engineer, Mr Edward ...

, Member of Parliament for Manchester Clayton, died and Flanagan was adopted as Coalition Unionist candidate for the resulting by-election. Flanagan is described as the managing director of the Imperial Patent Wadding Company Limited. Flanagan was beaten in the

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 ...

John Edward Sutton John Edward Sutton (23 December 1862 – 29 November 1945) was a British trades unionist and Labour Party politician. At the age of 14, Sutton took up employment at Bradford Colliery, Manchester. He became a check-weighman and secretary of the ...

, a trade union official and Labour candidate. Flanagan had 11,038 votes to Sutton's 14,662. Within a few months, on 15 November 1922, a

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 ( ...

was called and this time Flanagan beat Sutton and was elected as member of parliament for Manchester Clayton. In December 1923, a further

was held resulting in a win for Sutton. It was not until the 1931 general election that Flanagan won the seat again and return to Parliament. He held the seat until the 1935 general election when he decided not stand because of ill-health. Flanagan died on 21 June 1944.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flanagan, William Henry UK MPs 1922–1923 UK MPs 1931–1935 1871 births 1944 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Politicians from Manchester British industrialists British textile industry businesspeople English people of Irish descent Businesspeople from Manchester