South Somerset by-election, 1911

The South Somerset by-election, 1911 was a Parliamentary by-election for the South Somerset constituency. South Somerset was a county constituency in the county of Somerset, England, which returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

Vacancy

Sir Edward Strachey the Liberal MP since 1892, was raised to the peerage as Baron Strachie, of Sutton Court in the County of Somerset and accepted a seat in the House of Lords.^[1]

Electoral history

General Election December 1910: South Somerset[2]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Liberal	Sir Edward Strachey	4,784	52.6
	Conservative	Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert	4,317	47.4
Majority				5.2
Turnout
	Liberal hold		Swing

Candidates

Henry Vivian

Henry Harvey Vivian was given the task of defending a seat that had been Liberal since it was created in 1885. He had been Liberal MP for Birkenhead until his defeat at the December 1910 General Election.

The Conservative candidate was Aubrey Herbert who had stood here unsuccessfully in both 1910 General Elections.

Campaign

The campaign seems to have fought mostly on the issue of the National Insurance Act.^[3][4] On 13 November, in a portent of things to come, the Unionists won a Liberal seat in a by-election at Oldham. Herbert entered polling day in a mood of great optimism ^[5]

Result

Aubrey Herbert

By-Election 21 November 1911: South Somerset[6]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Conservative	Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert	4,878	50.8
	Liberal	Henry Harvey Vivian	4,730	49.2
Majority			148	1.6
Turnout
	Conservative hold		Swing

Aftermath

A General Election was due to take place by the end of 1915. By the autumn of 1914, the following candidates had been adopted to contest that election. Due to the outbreak of war, the election never took place.

• Unionist: Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert
• Liberal: Henry Harvey Vivian

For the 1918 elections, the South Somerset seat was replaced by Yeovil

General Election 14 December 1918: Yeovil
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Lt-Col. Hon. Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert	10,522
	Labour	W. T. Kelly	7,589
	Liberal	J. R. Brough	2,743
Majority
Turnout
	Unionist hold		Swing

• endorsed by the Coalition Government.

References

1. The London Gazette: no. 28547. p. 7952. 3 November 1911.
2. British parliamentary election results, 1885-1918 (Craig)
3. The Times, 14 November 1911 p10
4. The Times, 16 November 1911 p8
5. The Times, 21 November 1911 p10
6. "British by-election: Unionist returned". Dominion. 24 November 1911. Retrieved 6 October 2012.