1960 Bolton East by-election
The 1960 Bolton East by-election was a by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Bolton East in Lancashire on 16 November 1960. It was won by the Conservative Party candidate Edwin Taylor.
Vacancy
[edit]The seat became vacant when the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament Philip Bell, QC, was appointed as a County Court Judge. He had held the seat since the 1951 general election.
The by-election saw the decision of the Liberal Party to field a candidate, which broke a local pact which had held for 10 years whereby the Liberals left the Bolton East seat alone, and in return the Conservatives did not stand in Bolton West; the pact had achieved its objective of preventing the Labour Party from winning either.
Result
[edit]Taylor was elected by a margin of 641 votes over Labour candidate Robert Howarth, with the Liberal candidate Frank Byers securing a quarter of the vote. Dissension within the Labour Party over nuclear disarmament was thought to have helped Taylor win.
At the 1964 general election, a more organised Labour campaign in Bolton East saw Taylor voted out by a margin of more than 3,000 votes. A Conservative stood in Bolton West for the first time since 1950, resulting in a Labour gain from the Liberal Arthur Holt by roughly the same margin.
Votes
[edit]Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Edwin Taylor | 15,499 | 37.8 | −15.0 | |
Labour | Robert Howarth | 14,858 | 36.2 | −11.0 | |
Liberal | Frank Byers | 10,173 | 24.8 | New | |
New Conservative | John E. Dayton | 493 | 1.2 | New | |
Majority | 641 | 1.6 | −4.0 | ||
Turnout | 41,023 | ||||
Conservative hold | Swing | -2.0 |
Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Conservative | Philip Bell | 25,885 | 52.8 | ||
Labour | R. Hains | 23,153 | 47.2 | ||
Majority | 2,732 | 5.6 | |||
Turnout | 49,038 | 80.1 | |||
Conservative hold | Swing |
References
[edit]- ^ "1960 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 16 October 2013. Retrieved 15 August 2015.
- British Parliamentary by-elections: Bolton East 1960
- 1959 general election results at Richard Kimber's political science resources
- Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs