January 1910 United Kingdom general election

The January 1910 United Kingdom general election was held from 15 January to 10 February 1910. The government called the election in the midst of a constitutional crisis caused by the rejection of the People's Budget by the Conservative-dominated House of Lords, in order to get a mandate to pass the budget.

"February 1910 general election" redirects here. For the Finnish election, see 1910 Finnish parliamentary election.

January 1910 United Kingdom general election
15 January – 10 February 1910 (1910-01-15 – 1910-02-10)
All 670 seats in the House of Commons
336 seats needed for a majority
  First party Second party Third party
 
Leader H. H. Asquith Arthur Balfour John Redmond
Party Liberal Conservative & Lib. Unionist Irish Parliamentary
Leader since 30 April 1908 11 June 1902 6 February 1900
Leader's seat East Fife City of London Waterford City
Last election 397 seats, 48.9% 156 seats, 43.4% 82 seats, 0.6%
Seats won 274 272 71
Seat change 123 116 11
Popular vote 2,712,511 2,919,236 74,047
Percentage 43.5% 46.8% 1.2%
Swing 5.4% 3.4% 0.6%
  Fourth party Fifth party
 
Leader Arthur Henderson William O'Brien
Party Labour All-for-Ireland
Leader since 22 January 1908 March 1909
Leader's seat Barnard Castle North East Cork
Last election 29 seats, 4.8% Did not contest
Seats won 40 8
Seat change 11 8
Popular vote 435,770 23,605
Percentage 7.0% 0.4%
Swing 2.2% 0.4%
Colours denote the winning party
Prime Minister before election

H. H. Asquith
Liberal

 Prime Minister after election

H. H. Asquith
Liberal

The general election resulted in a hung parliament, with the Conservative Party led by Arthur Balfour and their Liberal Unionist allies receiving the largest number of votes, but the Liberals led by H. H. Asquith winning the largest number of seats, returning two more MPs than the Conservatives. Asquith formed a government with the support of the Irish Parliamentary Party, led by John Redmond. Another general election was soon held in December.

The Labour Party, led by Arthur Henderson, continued to gather momentum, going from 29 seats to 40.

Results
England and Wales seat winners
↓ 
274 272 71 40 8 5
Liberal Conservative IPP Lab AFI O
UK General Election January 1910
Candidates Votes
Party Leader Stood Elected Gained Unseated Net % of total % No. Net %
  Conservative & Lib. Unionist Arthur Balfour 594 272 130 14 +116 40.6 46.8 2,919,236 +3.4
  Liberal H. H. Asquith 511 274 12 135 −123 40.9 43.5 2,712,511 −5.4
  Labour Arthur Henderson 78 40 17 6 +11 6.0 7.0 435,770 +2.1
  Irish Parliamentary John Redmond 85 71 0 11 −11 10.6 1.2 74,047 +0.6
  All-for-Ireland William O'Brien 10 8 8 0 +8 1.2 0.4 23,605
  Independent Nationalist N/A 10 3 3 2 +2 0.5 0.3 16,533
  Social Democratic Federation H. M. Hyndman 9 0 0 0 0 0.2 13,479 −0.1
  Ind. Conservative N/A 4 1 1 1 0 0.1 0.2 11,772
  Free Trader John Eldon Gorst 4 0 0 0 0 0.2 11,553
  Independent Labour N/A 6 0 0 1 −1 0.2 9,936
  Independent Liberal N/A 3 1 1 0 +1 0.1 0.1 5,237
  Scottish Prohibition Edwin Scrymgeour 1 0 0 0 0 0.0 756
Total votes cast: 6,234,435.[1]

Voting summary
Popular vote
Conservative & Liberal Unionist
 
 46.82%
Liberal
 
 43.51%
Labour
 
 6.99%
Irish Parliamentary
 
 1.19%
All-for-Ireland
 
 0.38%
Others
 
 1.11%

Seats summary
Parliamentary seats
Liberal
 
 40.90%
Conservative and Liberal Unionist
 
 40.60%
Irish Parliamentary
 
 10.60%
Labour
 
 5.97%
All-for-Ireland
 
 1.19%
Others
 
 0.75%

See also

References
  • Blewett, Neal (1972), The Peers, the Parties and the People: The General Elections of 1910
  • Clarke, P. F. (1975), "The electoral position of the Liberal and Labour parties, 1910–1914", English Historical Review, 90 (357): 828–836, doi:10.1093/ehr/xc.ccclvii.828
  • Craig, F. W. S. (1989), British Electoral Facts: 1832–1987, Dartmouth: Gower, ISBN 0900178302
  • O'Brien, Phillips Payson (2010), "The 1910 Elections and the Primacy of Foreign Policy", in Mulligan, William; Simms, Brendan (eds.), The Primacy of Foreign Policy in British History, 1660–2000, Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 249–259
  • Pelling, Henry (1967), Social Geography of British Elections 1885–1910
  • Sykes, Alan (1979), Tariff Reform in British Politics: 1903–1913, Oxford University Press
  • Sykes, Alan (1975), "The Confederacy and the purge of the Unionist free traders, 1906–1910", Historical Journal, 18 (2): 349–366, doi:10.1017/S0018246X00023724
  • Wald, Kenneth D. (1978), "Class and the vote before the first world war", British Journal of Political Science, 8 (4): 441–457, doi:10.1017/S0007123400001496

Manifestos
  1. All parties shown.
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