The seat had become vacant when the constituency's LabourMember of Parliament (MP), Keir Hardie, died on 26 September 1915, aged 59. He had held the seat since the 1900 general election, when he was elected as one of the first two Labour MPs.
Candidates
In May 1915 the Liberals, the Conservatives and Labour had formed a Coalition Government, although the majority[citation needed] of the Labour Party had stayed outside the Government. Furthermore, from August 1914 until June 1918, a war-time electoral truce existed between the three parties; the party holding a seat would not be opposed by the other two at a by-election. The Conservatives and Liberals therefore did not contest the by-election.
Merthyr Tydfil was a miners' seat, and power within the local Labour Party lay within the locally dominant trade union, the South Wales Miners' Federation. The SWMF balloted their members to determine the Labour candidate.
The selection procedure quickly became a battle between competing factions of the Independent Labour Party, played out within the administrative structures of the SWMF. The two principal candidates were James Winstone, the President of the Federation, and Charles Stanton, a miners' agent in the constituency.
Following the result of the selection, Stanton resigned as a miners' agent and fought the election as a pro-war 'National' candidate. He attracted support from the local Liberals and Conservatives on a 'straight war ticket "to fight against the Huns for our homeland."'[4] He was designated as Independent Labour.[5]
The wife of David Watts Morgan, Agent of the No. 1 Rhondda District of the SWMF and to be elected Labour MP for Rhondda East in 1918, supported Stanton, an act he (Morgan) later had to apologise for.[6]
Results
On a reduced turnout, Stanton won the seat with a majority of 4,206 votes.
^Millman, Brock (2000). Managing domestic dissent in First World War Britain. ISBN9780714650548. Retrieved 13 January 2012. (Query - did Stanton hold this office in November 1915? [citation needed] The Wikipedia article on the BWL states it was set up in 1916. And Ivor Rees' article on Stanton in the National Library of Wales Journal states that 'Stanton and Ben Tillett ... among others founded the British Workers' National League in March 1916 (with Stanton as a vice-president)'
^"Merthyr vacancy: result of first ballot". The Guardian. 18 October 1915.
^"Merthyr vacancy: result of miners' second ballot". The Guardian. 25 October 1915.
^ abCraig, F. W. S. (1974). British parliamentary election results 1885-1918 (1 ed.). London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd. ISBN9780333169032. Page 458
Further reading
Craig, F. W. S. (1974). British parliamentary election results 1885-1918 (1 ed.). London: Macmillan.