Alfred Henry Scott (British politician)

Alfred Henry Scott (24 June 1868 – 17 July 1939) was a British Liberal politician.

Scott was born in Ardwick, Manchester. He entered business as a merchant in the city, and was elected to Manchester City Council.[1]

At the 1900 general election he was the Liberal candidate at Manchester East, where he stood unsuccessfully against the Conservative First Lord of the Treasury, Arthur Balfour. In his election address he set out his political views: he supported reform of the Army, Home Rule for Ireland, the temperance movement, abolition of the House of Lords, and nationalisation or municipalisation of land, railways and mines.[1]

At the next general election in 1906 he stood at Ashton under Lyne, and was elected as the town's Member of Parliament.[2] He held the seat at the January 1910 election.

A second general election was held in December of the same year. Scott was defeated by the Canadian millionaire Max Aitken (later Lord Beaverbrook), who had been "parachuted" in as the Liberal Unionist candidate.[3]

Scott moved to London, and in 1913 he was elected to be a Progressive Party alderman on the London County Council.[4] The Progressives were the municipal wing of the Liberal Party in London. He remained a member of the LCC until 1922, when he was defeated by a Municipal Reform Party opponent in the St Pancras South East Division.[5]

Scott made a number of attempts to return to the Commons, and was the unsuccessful Liberal candidate at Darlington in 1918, West Ham Stratford in 1922 and Finsbury in 1923.[6] He died in Thanet, Kent aged 71.

References

Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

  1. ^ a b "The Position in the Constituencies", The Times, 18 September 1900, p.4
  2. ^ "Progress of the General Election" The Times, 13 January 1906
  3. ^ "Discover Tameside's Heritage". The Tameside Citizen. Tameside Council. 10 October 2006. http://www.tameside.gov.uk/citizen36/citizen06.htm. Retrieved 27 October 2008. 
  4. ^ "London County Council, First Meeting of the New Body", The Times, 14 March 1913, p.5
  5. ^ "L.C.C. Elections, Municipal Reform Gains, Labour Stationary", The Times, 3 March 1922, p.12
  6. ^ The Times, 26 November 1918, p.7; 27 October 1922, p.8; 27 November 1923, p.8

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Herbert Whiteley
Member of Parliament for Ashton-under-Lyne
1906Dec. 1910
Succeeded by
William Maxwell Aitken