United Kingdom general election, 1918

14 December 1918

All 707 seats to the House of Commons 354 seats needed for a majority

Turnout	57.2%
	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Andrew Bonar Law	David Lloyd George	Éamon de Valera
Party	Conservative	Coalition Liberal	Sinn Féin
Leader since	1911	7 December 1916	1917
Leader's seat	Glasgow Central	Caernarvon Boroughs	Clare East and Mayo East
Last election	271 seats, 40.4%	272 seats, 40.5% (as unified Liberal Party^†)	N/A
Seats won	379^*	127	73
Seat change	108	145	N/A
Popular vote	4,083,419	1,396,590	497,107
Percentage	39.2%	13.4%	4.6%
Swing	7.1%	30.4%	4.6%

	Fourth party	Fifth party	Sixth party

Leader	William Adamson	H. H. Asquith	George Nicoll Barnes
Party	Labour	Liberal	National Democratic
Leader since	24 October 1917	30 April 1908	1918
Leader's seat	West Fife	East Fife (defeated)	Glasgow Gorbals
Last election	42 seats, 7.1%	272 seats, 40.5% (as unified Liberal party^†)	N/A
Seats won	57	36	13 (with other Coalition Labour)
Seat change	15	236	N/A
Popular vote	2,245,777	1,388,784	197,475
Percentage	21.5%	13.3%	1.9%
Swing	14.4%	30.5%	N/A

^* The Conservative total includes 47 Conservative candidates elected without the Coalition coupon, of whom 23 were Irish Unionists.

^† Both Liberal factions are here compared with the united Liberal Party's result in December 1910. Therefore the figures for swing, etc., do not add up.

PM before election

David Lloyd George
Coalition Liberal

Subsequent PM

David Lloyd George
Coalition Liberal

The United Kingdom general election of 1918 was called immediately after the Armistice with Germany which ended World War I, and held on Saturday 14 December 1918. It was the first general election to be held on a single day, although the count did not take place until 28 December due to the time taken to transport votes from soldiers serving overseas.

It resulted in a landslide victory for the coalition government of David Lloyd George, who had replaced H. H. Asquith as prime minister during the war.

It was the first election to be held after the Representation of the People Act 1918. It was thus the first election in which women over the age of 30, and all men over the age of 21, could vote. Previously, all women and many poor men had been excluded from voting.

The election was also noted for the dramatic result in Ireland, which showed clear disapproval towards government policy. The Irish Parliamentary Party were almost completely wiped out by the hardline Sinn Féin republicans, who refused to take their seats in Westminster. It was the last election before the majority of Irish counties seceded from the UK to form the Irish Free State; the Irish War of Independence began soon after the election.

Jan 1910 election • MPs
Dec 1910 election • MPs
1918 election • MPs
1922 election • MPs
1923 election • MPs

Background

Lloyd George's coalition government was supported by the majority of the Liberals and Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives. However, the election saw a split in the Liberal Party between those who were aligned with Lloyd George and the government and those who were aligned with Asquith, the party's official leader.

On 14 November it was announced that Parliament, which had been sitting since 1910 and had been extended by emergency wartime action, would dissolve on 25 November, with elections on 14 December.^[1]

Following confidential negotiations over the summer of 1918, it was agreed that certain candidates were to be offered the support of the prime minister and the leader of the Conservative Party at the next general election. To these candidates a letter, known as the Coalition Coupon, was sent, indicating the government's endorsement of their candidacy. 159 Liberal, 364 Conservative, 20 National Democratic and Labour, and 2 Coalition Labour candidates received the coupon. For this reason the election was sometimes known as the coupon election.

80 Conservative candidates stood without a coupon. Of these, 35 candidates were Irish Unionists. Of the other non-couponed Conservative candidates, only 23 stood against a Coalition candidate; the remaining 22 candidates stood in areas where there were no coupons, or refused the offer of a coupon.^[2]

The Labour Party, led by William Adamson, fought the election independently, as did those Liberals who did not receive a coupon.

The election was not chiefly fought over what peace to make with Germany, although those issues played a role. More important was the voters' evaluation of Lloyd George in terms of what he had accomplished so far and what he promised for the future. His supporters emphasized that he had won the Great War. Against his strong record in social legislation, he called for making "a country fit for heroes to live in."^[3]

This election was known as a khaki election, due to the immediate postwar setting and the role of the demobilized soldiers.

Coalition victory

The coalition won the election easily, with the Conservatives the big winners. They were the largest party in the governing majority. Lloyd George remained Prime Minister, despite the Conservatives outnumbering his pro-coalition Liberals.

An additional 47 Conservatives, 23 of whom were Irish Unionists, won without the coupon but did not act as a separate block or oppose the government except on the issue of Irish independence.

While most of the pro-coalition Liberals were re-elected, Asquith's faction was reduced to just 36 seats and lost all their leaders from parliament; Asquith himself lost his own seat. Nine of these MPs subsequently joined the Coalition Liberal group.

The Labour Party greatly increased its vote share, surpassing the total votes of either Liberal party. However, they only slightly increased their number of seats, and lost some of their earlier leaders like Ramsay MacDonald and Arthur Henderson. Labour won the most seats in Wales (which had previously been dominated by the Liberals) for the first time, a feat it has continued to the present day.

The Conservative MPs included record numbers of corporate directors, bankers and businessmen, while Labour MPs were mostly from the working class. Many young veterans reacted against the harsh tone of the campaign and became disillusioned with politics.^[4]

Ireland

Main article: Irish general election, 1918

In Ireland, the Irish Parliamentary Party lost almost all their seats, most of which were won by Sinn Féin under Éamon de Valera. The 73 Sinn Féin elected members declined to take their seat in the British House of Commons, sitting instead in the Irish revolutionary assembly, Dáil Éireann. On 17 May 1918 almost the entire leadership of Sinn Féin, including de Valera and Arthur Griffith, had been arrested. In total 47 of the Sinn Féin MPs were elected from jail. The Dáil first convened on 21 January 1919, which marks the beginning of the Irish War of Independence.

Constance Markievicz became the first woman elected to Parliament. She was a Sinn Féin member elected for Dublin St Patrick's, and like the other Sinn Féin MPs, she did not take her seat.

Results

Maps

Results in Ireland. The Sinn Féin MPs did not take their seats in the House of Commons, and instead formed Dáil Éireann.

Results in London

Results in Scotland

Seats by party

↓
332	127	73	57	47	36	35
Coalition Conservative	Coalition Liberal	Sinn Féin	Labour	C	Liberal	O

UK General Election 1918
			Candidates						Votes
Party		Leader	Standing	Elected	Gained	Unseated	Net	% of total	%	No.	Net %
Coalition Government
	Coalition Conservative	Andrew Bonar Law	362	332	N/A	N/A	+ 332	47.0	32.5	3,393,167
	Coalition Liberal	David Lloyd George	145	127	127	0	+ 127	18.0	12.6	1,318,844	N/A
	Coalition National Democratic	George Nicoll Barnes	18	9	9	0	+ 9	1.3	1.5	156,834	N/A
	Coalition Labour	N/A	5	4	4	0	+ 4	0.1	0.4	40,641	N/A
	Coalition Independent	N/A	1	1	1	0	+ 1	0.1	0.1	9,274	N/A
	Coalition Government (total)		531	473	N/A	N/A	N/A	66.5	47.1	4,918,760
Opposition
	Labour	William Adamson	361	57	N/A	N/A	+ 15	8.1	20.8	2,171,230
	Liberal	H. H. Asquith	277	36	N/A	N/A	− 235	5.1	13.0	1,355,398
	Conservative	Andrew Bonar Law	80	47	47	0	− 224	6.6	5.9	610,681	N/A
	Sinn Féin	Éamon de Valera	102	73	73	0	+ 73	10.3	4.6	476,458	N/A
	Irish Parliamentary	John Dillon	57	6	2	69	− 67	1.0	2.2	226,498
	Independent Labour	N/A	29	2	2	0	+ 2	0.3	1.1	116,322
	Independent	N/A	42	2	2	0	+ 2	0.3	1.0	105,261
	National Party	Henry Page Croft	26	2	2	0	+ 2	0.3	0.9	94,389	N/A
	NFDDSS	James Hogge	30	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.6	67,548	N/A
	Co-operative Party	William Henry Watkins	10	1	1	0	+ 1	0.1	0.6	57,785	N/A
	Independent Conservative	N/A	17	1	1	1	0	0.1	0.4	44,637
	Labour Unionist	Edward Carson	3	3	3	0	+ 3	0.4	0.3	30,304	N/A
	Independent Liberal	N/A	8	0	0	0	0	0.1	0.2	24,985
	Agriculturalist	Edward Mials Nunneley	7	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.2	19,412	N/A
	National Democratic	George Nicoll Barnes	8	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.2	17,991	N/A
	Belfast Labour		4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	12,164	N/A
	National Socialist Party	H. M. Hyndman	3	1	1	0	+ 1	0.1	0.1	11,013	N/A
	Highland Land League		4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	8,710
	Women's Party	Christabel Pankhurst	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	8,614	N/A
	British Socialist Party	Albert Inkpin	3	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	8,394
	Independent Democratic	N/A	4	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	8,351	N/A
	NADSS	James Howell	1	1	1	0	+ 1	0.1	0.1	8,287	N/A
	Independent Nationalist	N/A	6	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	8,183
	Socialist Labour	Tom Bell	3	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.1	7,567
	Scottish Prohibition	Edwin Scrymgeour	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	5,212
	Independent Progressive	N/A	3	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	5,077
	Independent Labour and Agriculturalist	N/A	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	1,927
	Christian Socialist	N/A	1	0	0	0	0	0.0	0.0	597

Total votes cast: 10,434,700. Turnout 57.2%.^[5] All parties shown. In each other case, the non-coalition vote is compared with the party's previous vote.

Votes summary

Popular vote

All Coalition Parties			47.14%
Coalition Conservative			32.52%
Labour			20.81%
Liberal			12.99%
Coalition Liberal			12.64%
Conservative			5.85%
Sinn Féin			4.57%
Irish Parliamentary			2.17%
Coalition National Democratic			1.5%
Independent			3.74%
Others			3.21%

All Conservative Parties			39.09%
All Labour Parties			22.43%
All Liberal Parties			25.87%
All Irish Nationalist Parties			6.82%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats

All Coalition Parties			66.9%
Coalition Conservative			46.96%
Labour			8.06%
Liberal			5.09%
Coalition Liberal			17.96%
Conservative			6.65%
Sinn Féin			10.33%
Irish Parliamentary			0.99%
Coalition National Democratic			1.27%
Independent			1.98%
Others			0.71%

All Conservative Parties			53.75%
All Labour Parties			8.91%
All Liberal Parties			23.2%
All Irish Nationalist Parties			11.32%

References

↑ Mowat (1955), p. 3.
↑ McEwen (1962), p. 295
↑ Taylor, A. J. P. (1976). English History, 1914–1945. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 127–128. ISBN 0198217153.
↑ Mowat (1955), p. 9.
↑ http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp2008/rp08-012.pdf

Craig, F. W. S. (1989). British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987. Dartmouth: Gower. ISBN 0900178302.
Spartacus: Political Parties and Election Results
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/geresults.html

External links

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