North Cornwall by-election, 1932

The North Cornwall by-election, 1932 was a parliamentary by-election held on 22 July 1932 for the British House of Commons constituency of North Cornwall.

Previous Member of Parliament

The seat had become vacant when the constituency's Liberal Member of Parliament (MP), the Rt Hon. Sir Donald Maclean died.

Maclean (9 January 1864 – 15 June 1932), practised as a solicitor before becoming a Liberal Member of Parliament. He represented a number of constituencies, first Bath (1906-Jan 1910), next Peebles and Selkirk (Dec 1910-1918), Peebles and South Midlothian (1918–1922), and finally this seat from 1929 to 1932.

He was knighted and became a Privy Councillor in 1916, and was Chairman of the Liberal Parliamentary Party from 1919 to 1922. As the nominal leader of the Liberal Party, Herbert Henry Asquith had lost his seat in the House of Commons, from 1919 until 1920 Maclean also served as parliamentary leader of the party. He also functioned as Leader of the Opposition as Labour had no official leader and Sinn Féin refused to participate in parliamentary government.

Towards the end of his life, Maclean joined the National Government, a coalition. He served as President of the Board of Education from 1931 to 1932, when he died from cardiovascular disease at the age of sixty-eight.

Candidates

Two candidates were nominated for the by-election. The list below is set out in descending order of the number of votes received at the by-election.

1. The Rt Hon. Sir Francis Dyke Acland, Bt. was the Liberal candidate.

Acland (7 March 1874 – 9 June 1939), was a member of a family which provided several Liberal MPs during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was sworn of the Privy Council in 1915. He was also the 14th Acland Baronet, having inherited the title on his father's death in 1926.

Acland was a junior minister from 1908 until 1910 and again from 1911 until 1916.

Francis Dyke Acland was first elected to Parliament, to represent Richmond (Yorkshire) from 1906 until January 1910 when he was defeated. He returned to Parliament, representing Camborne from December 1910 until November 1922. He contested Tiverton in 1922 and was later the MP there between June and December 1923. After contesting Hexham in May 1929, Acland was elected for this seat in the by-election and retained it until his death.

2. The Conservative candidate was Alfred Martyn Williams, who had been born in 1897. He had previously been MP for the seat between 1924 and 1929. He had unsuccessfully contested the division at the general elections of 1929 and 1931.

Result

General Election 1931 result

See also

• North Cornwall by-election, 1939
• North Cornwall constituency
• List of United Kingdom by-elections (1931–1950)
• United Kingdom by-election records

References

• British Parliamentary Election Results 1918-1949, compiled and edited by F.W.S. Craig (Macmillan Press 1977)
• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament, Volume III 1919-1945, edited by M. Stenton and S. Lees (Harvester Press 1979)