Election Name: | 1904 Gateshead by-election |
Type: | presidential |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Previous Election: | Gateshead (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1900s |
Previous Year: | 1900 |
Next Election: | Gateshead (UK Parliament constituency)#Elections in the 1900s |
Next Year: | 1906 |
Election Date: | 20 January 1904 |
Candidate1: | Johnson |
Party1: | Liberal Party (UK) |
Popular Vote1: | 8,220 |
Percentage1: | 54.0% |
Candidate2: | Morpeth |
Party2: | Unionist Party (UK) |
Popular Vote2: | 7,015 |
Percentage2: | 46.0% |
Map Size: | 250px |
MP | |
Posttitle: | Subsequent MP |
Before Election: | Sir William Allan |
Before Party: | Liberal Party (UK) |
After Election: | John Johnson |
After Party: | Liberal Party (UK) |
The 1904 Gateshead by-election was a Parliamentary by-election held on 20 January 1904.[1] The constituency returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.
Sir William Allan had been Liberal MP for the seat of Gateshead since the 1893 Gateshead by-election. He died on the 28 December 1903 at the age of 66.[2]
Gateshead had returned Liberal candidates at every election since the seat was created in 1832. Since 1886 their only challengers had been Liberal Unionists. Allan's third and final election win in 1900 was his widest;
Polling Day was fixed for 20 January 1904, just 23 days after the death of Allan. The campaign was therefore very short.
Despite the fact that this was a January by-election, the voter turn out was well up on the previous election. The Liberals held the seat, slightly increasing their vote share:
In 1904 Morpeth was elected to the House of Commons for Birmingham South, a seat he held until 1911, when he succeeded his father in the earldom and entered the House of Lords. Johnson was re-elected at the 1906 general election:Johnson's majority had increased in line with the swing to the Liberals across the country. He continued to take the Liberal whip in the Commons until 1909 when he switched to the Labour Party group.
Gateshead 1904