Thomas Scanlan
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Thomas Scanlan (died January 9, 1930) was Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for North Sligo from 1909 to 1918 and a barrister. He was educated at the Catholic College, Sligo and at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, and married Mary Mullen of Glasgow.
Scanlan was elected unopposed for North Sligo at a by-election in August 1909 and remained unopposed in the two general elections of 1910. In 1918 however he lost the seat to J. J. Clancy of Sinn Féin, by a margin of more than two to one.
Scanlan was responsible for the first successful bill prescribing use of the single transferable vote (STV) for any part of the United Kingdom, the Sligo Corporation Act 1918. Since 1911, when the Proportional Representation Society of Ireland was formed, electoral reform had been seen as a way of ensuring that the Protestant minority in Ireland would be guaranteed effective participation in politics under Home Rule. The Home Rule Act 1914 contained partial provision for STV, but was never implemented. STV was however used for the elections for the new Corporation in Sligo in January 1919, in which the Ratepayers’ Association (consisting largely of Protestants) headed the poll and Sinn Féin came second. Proportional representation has subsequently been a key feature of politics in Ireland, both North and South.
As a barrister, Scanlan represented the Seamen’s and Firemen’s Union at the inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. After his defeat he moved to England and was a Metropolitan Police Magistrate, 1924 to 1927.
[edit] Sources
- Cornelius O’Leary, Irish Elections 1918-1977: Parties, Voters and Proportional Representation, Dublin, Gill & MacMillan, 1979
- Brian M. Walker (ed.), Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 1978
- Who Was Who, 1929-1940
