Chapter 10 Methods and tone

The manifestos

If preserving the unofficial truce with the Coalition Liberals remained one of the goals of the Conservative Party leadership, and the party at the national level had carefully avoided tariff reform as a potential bone of contention, then the tone of the manifesto and every other election communication assumed an additional importance. While the Coalition Liberals could damn Bonar Law and his ministers with faint praise and references to wartime achievements and shared endeavours, for the Conservatives the central thrust of their manifesto and campaign (in line with the advice from the group of senior Tories asked to pronounce on the matter by Bonar Law) was that they would provide a government that would be sharply different in tone, methods and morals to that of Lloyd George. Conservative voters were left to infer how that would translate into policy towards government expenditure, foreign and colonial policy, and the domestic field. In addition, it did not stop newspapers from speculating on what a Conservative government might mean in spite of the apparent gaps in the manifesto.¹ The vacuum formed by the attempt to preserve a truce between the Conservatives and Coalition Liberals by having minimal disputes at the policy level was rapidly filled by differences, real and perceived, about what each party stood for.

In terms of the processes of realignment taking place within British politics, the significance of the policy vacuum in the 1922 election was underplayed by Maurice Cowling in The Impact of Labour.² If, in Cowling’s eyes, the central achievement of the Conservative Party in the early 1920s was to define itself as chief opponent to socialism, and to define Labour as the principal party of opposition, then the Conservatives first had to disentangle themselves from the Coalition Liberals. The nature of the campaign in 1922 forced a process by which the electorate had to concentrate on perceptions of the core values of each party that had been buried from 1914 beneath the compromises and exigencies of a coalition to win the war. The lack of serious policy issues between the two former coalition partners effectively meant the contest between them was fought in terms of brand. For the Conservatives, that branding battle served to remind the electorate of the perceived traditional values of the Conservatives. For the Coalition Liberals the Lloyd George brand was badly tarnished in a number of respects, and the longer traditions which it could tap into were co-owned by the Asquith Liberals.

Their manifesto in turn made life harder for Liberals of both persuasions. Remarkably short and simple, the Asquith Liberal Party’s manifesto had a first section headed ‘Lloyd George and the Conservatives’ in an attempt to ensure that those two parties remained firmly linked in the minds of voters. It wasn’t until the third section that the manifesto began to detail a separate Liberal identity. Traditional Liberal values such as the defence of free trade, economy and the need to secure the populace against hardship were to the fore, but the latter was carefully coupled with assertions that ‘Liberalism is not socialism. Liberalism repudiates the doctrine of warfare against private enterprise’.³ While the Liberal manifesto contained a limited, and less than ringing, restatement of traditional Liberal values, it appeared, at the same time, to be remarkably unambitious. Underpinning it was a strong sense that the Asquith Liberals considered that the best they might achieve was to win sufficient seats to become the official opposition to the government. That, coupled with the adoption of proportional representation as a Liberal manifesto pledge, seemed to suggest that the Liberals under Asquith had almost given up on the idea of ever forming a government in their own right. As a restatement of the Liberal brand, the 1922 Asquith manifesto in tone and content left much to be desired.

Perhaps, however, a second game was being played out within the 1922 General Election. While the betting was on a Conservative-Coalition Liberal ‘arrangement’ after the election, it was not wholly out of the question that Bonar Law might seek to do a deal with Asquith, or at least to keep the prospect in play in order to potentially head off Asquith’s support for a Labour minority government. The likely poll outcomes under discussion in late October pointed to a number of possible permutations by which a government might be arrived at. In forming his government following his acceptance of the premiership, Bonar Law had asked Reginald McKenna, former Liberal chancellor of the exchequer then serving as chairman of the Midland Bank, to return to his old post. While the appointment of a bank chairman to the exchequer might please the City, the move appeared to be more about sending a message to the Asquith Liberals. McKenna preferred not to take up the offer of the exchequer, fearing for his post at the bank, but strikingly during the campaign McKenna came out for Bonar Law even though he remained a Liberal.⁴ The less than powerful restatement of the Liberal brand in the manifesto may have been Asquith similarly leaving the door open to co-operation with a Bonar Law ministry.

The Labour Party manifesto, by contrast, and useful in terms of pushing other parties towards coalitionism, was far more ambitious, promising changes to taxation to make the burden of public expenditure fairer while emphasising its concern for sensible economy that was not ‘penny wise’ but pound foolish. Housing and industry were central to the Labour Party programme, but the concerns of the agricultural sector (both farmers and labourers) was also highlighted. The manifesto highlighted Labour’s socialist credentials while suggesting that the party was the best way to chart a middle course between the twin dangers of reaction and revolution. The Labour manifesto suggested a party that was moderate and modern, rooted in traditional British values while eschewing the political extremes: a party that could represent the aspirations of the working-class base (industrial/urban and rural) of British society. There was enough in the manifesto, however, for anti-socialists to use it to their advantage and to maintain a united front against Labour.

Local candidates

To some extent these branding issues fed through into the election addresses of candidates. Typically published in the local press, they varied widely in their nature from point-by-point iterations of policy through to more informal letters to constituents. This diversity may, in part, be a reflection of the state of the party machines at the outbreak of the campaigns. As John Ramsden notes, the election caught the Conservative Party cold: ‘[Overall] Party organisation played little part in the campaign. Virtually no literature was available at the outset for nobody knew a month before polling day on what basis the election would be fought’.⁵ Nevertheless, some individual associations, such as at Lincoln, had to some extent been energised by election chatter in late 1921–early 1922 and were better placed to respond to the challenge of a quick campaign.⁶ Meanwhile the Labour Party machine was fully geared up for the campaign. As F. M. Leventhal notes, from 1918 onwards the administration of the Labour Party was in the very ‘capable hands’ of Arthur Henderson. His ‘knowledge of the party apparatus, and especially of local activists and constituency politics, made him indispensable’. The outcome of the general election would result in a vindication of the ‘party machine’ under Henderson.⁷ While the Conservative campaign would rely, perhaps a little too heavily, on local efforts, Labour was ready with a profusion of campaign literature. Likewise, the Liberals of both varieties were prepared to spend heavily. All parties appreciated that election literature, even if produced to a common template, had to be carefully tailored to local requirements. The diversity was nevertheless dizzying.

In Exeter, the address by the Conservative candidate (Sir Robert Newman)⁸ was in the form of a letter which he signed off ‘Your obedient servant’.⁹ In Hammersmith South, another Conservative, Sir William Bull, who had voted against ending the coalition at the Carlton Club, proclaimed that he would abide by the will of the majority of the party in breaking away from the coalition.¹⁰ His coalitionist leanings were, however, well known even to the point of chairing a meeting in his constituency in support of Lloyd George. The Times had some sympathy, remarking: ‘He dreads disunion in current circumstances: He believes in peace’.¹¹

In Bristol East, Harold Morris,¹² the Coalition Liberal candidate, put out his election address in the local newspapers on 7 November. He was careful to emphasise that he was endorsed by both the Coalition Liberal and Conservative associations in the constituency. Strikingly, the focus for much of his address revolved around foreign policy with support for the League of Nations and the payment of just reparations by Germany. On economic issues he backed prudent government economies, free trade, support for unemployed ex-servicemen and moderate trade unions. He also voiced his support for housing, health and education initiatives. Echoing the party line he wrote: ‘Re-action represents hopeless stagnation – revolution complete submersion – neither has any place in my political convictions’.¹³ Notably he also reminded his readers of his own wartime service (he’d served with the Coldstream Guards during the war) with a nod to the fact that the anniversary of the armistice would fall during the election: ‘I have seen the bare and desolated plains of France and Flanders during and since the war’.¹⁴

In terms of content Morris’s election address differed little from some of the Conservative candidates facing a strong challenge from Labour and hoping to enlist Liberal support. In Nottingham Rushcliffe, Henry Betterton¹⁵ had won the seat for the Conservatives with the benefit of the coupon in 1918. Facing a straight fight against Labour, his election address had some warm words for the coalition as a vital necessity in the aftermath of the war. Support for ex-servicemen, easing unemployment, a foreign policy based around the League of Nations and anti-socialism were the pillars of his election address.¹⁶

In some constituencies, where Conservatives were looking for support from Liberals, election addresses emphasised respect for Lloyd George, his war record and the coalition. For example, in Birmingham (Handsworth) Oliver Locker Lampson,¹⁷ Austen Chamberlain’s parliamentary private secretary from 1919 to 1922 (transferring from a seat in Huntingdonshire), faced a challenge from a well-known and respected local independent. Lampson was careful to solicit support on a wide basis: ‘The Coalition has vanished, and with it the leadership of Mr. Lloyd George, whose services in the Great War were magnificent and should never be forgotten. I had hoped to fight this Election, even as we fought the War, in close co-operation with allies from every side. But this has become impossible, and I am now called upon to contest this seat as a Unionist’.¹⁸

In the Plymouth Drake constituency, newly created in 1918, Conservative Arthur Shirley Benn looked for support from Coalition Liberals to reinforce his position against Labour and Asquithian Liberal challengers. His election address referred to the feeling ‘by many people that a Conservative and Unionist Administration (with the co-operation of many Liberals) will deal in a more business like way with some of the many difficult subjects which are facing us’.¹⁹ His four key policy points emphasising the importance of private enterprise, opposition to nationalisation, lowering taxation, and opposition to the capital levy suggested a platform that most Liberals could support.

The profusion of campaign literature in Shoreditch for Dr Christopher Addison was particularly noteworthy, emphasising the costliness of the election and the way in which national campaign messaging could come second to local circumstances shaped by particular candidates and issues. One of Lloyd George’s ministers, until a growing estrangement between the two reached its culmination in 1921, Addison stood again for the Shoreditch constituency which he had represented since 1910. The difference was that in 1922 he was standing as one of Asquith’s Liberals. Believing that the Coalition Liberal organisation was determined to get him, Addison fought a remarkably vigorous campaign in which an absolute welter of election campaign material was produced along the lines of ‘Shoreditch needs the Doctor’, reminding voters of his reputation as a campaigner for health and social reform.²⁰ The cost of his campaign was considerable: over £1,250 including £252 on campaign literature and posters, not including delivery.²¹ Posters large, small and window-size proliferated, including a flyer the size and shape of a beer mat as Addison spent to the maximum allowed campaign expenses equating to 5 pence per elector under the 1883 Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act.²² At every turn Addison’s campaign literature identified him with some of the achievements of the Lloyd George government when he was Minister of Health from 1919 to 1921, while trying to situate him as a firm opponent of the coalition: a man of the people (particularly the working class) but without being too radical. The breach between Addison and Lloyd George was identified as the latter’s willingness to spend money on Britain’s emergent Middle Eastern empire that might have been better used to address the needs of the working classes. It was a difficult balancing act to pull off, as he attempted to appeal to Liberal, Labour and, to a certain extent, Conservative voters, and ultimately it was to prove unsuccessful as he did indeed lose to the Lloyd George Liberal, Ernest Price.

The file on Shoreditch in Addison’s papers at the Bodleian Library indicates that his Labour and National Liberal opponents did their best to respond to the productivity and creativeness of the local Liberal campaign. Ernest Price’s campaign identified Addison with the ‘squandermania’ of the postwar period, while the Labour candidate suggested that he, rather than Addison, was the real ‘People’s Man’ with a ‘People’s Programme’.²³ The upshot would, however, be that ‘The Doctor’ would find himself out of Westminster, financially embarrassed by his levels of campaign spending, hounded by his agent for hundreds of pounds, and having to appeal to party grandees for financial support, as he dispensed with his servants and made economies at home.²⁴

To some extent the central parties could help candidates within their constituencies. The Labour Party Press Bureau, for example, used a standardised form to gather information from all candidates so that it could provide short pen-portraits of its prospective parliamentary candidates to the local and national media. Notes on candidates tended to emphasise the union/activist credentials of candidates, their religious and humanitarian work, together with service during the First World War.²⁵ Likewise the central party turned out a veritable blizzard of publicity with thirteen million leaflets being produced during the general election, six new posters designed, and ten million copies of the manifesto printed.²⁶ At the same time, Labour’s Joint Research and Information Party provided useful intelligence to candidates on their opponents, including the directorships which they held.²⁷

The extent to which local candidates were able to mediate the central branding of the party is difficult to quantify, especially when centrally produced campaign literature, and memos (in the case of the Conservatives), informed and guided candidates and agents.²⁸ Strikingly, with the locally produced campaign literature, most emphasised a select few of the promises made by the central parties in terms of manifesto and speeches by major figures within the party. Others contained appeals for cross-party support in line with local party truces and the unofficial ceasefire between two of the parties. Noteworthy, like those in support of Addison’s campaign, were those addresses which emphasised the personal qualities and previous service of the candidate in the hopes of developing cross-party support. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this kind of localism came with the candidature of Edgar Chatfeild-Clarke, for the Asquith Liberals on the Isle of Wight. Beyond his support for traditional Liberal values, the principal selling point of his campaign was that as a fifth-generation islander, from a well-known island family, he was ‘the real island man’, rather than some party hopeful parachuted in from somewhere else.²⁹ Being a true islander (‘A Lifetime Islander for the Island’)³⁰ was presented to the electorate as an issue which trumped all others, including a party label. In the case of the Isle of Wight, local identity in the campaign could eclipse national issues.

Getting the message over

The strategies of particular candidates, either standing firmly behind central manifesto and messaging, emphasising the party brand, promoting particular issues of relevance to the constituency, appealing for cross-party support or highlighting the personal qualities of the candidate, were further repeated in public meetings. These meetings were held across constituencies, often two per day in the evenings after work. The favoured venues were parish halls and schools but also included street corners and selected businesses during working hours. For example, the speaking engagements for Colonel C. H. C. Guest (Coalition Liberal) in North Bristol included:

7 November – 8 p.m. address at Greenbank Council School;

8 November – 1.50 p.m. address at Messrs Fox’s works and 8 p.m. at St. Simon’s School;

9 November – 8 p.m. address at Chester Park Council School;

10 November – 8 p.m. address at Horley Road Council School;

11 November – 12.30 p.m. address at corner of Harleston Street, 1.15 p.m. at Reading Road and 8 p.m. at Ashley Down Council Schools;

13 November – 1.15 p.m. address at Picton Street, 7.30 p.m. at St. Thomas’s Parish Hall, 8 p.m. at Stapleton Memorial Hall;

14 November – 1.15 p.m. address at Sussex Place, 7.30 p.m. at Fishponds Parish Hall, 8 p.m. at Old Library Premises, Trinity Road.³¹

The parties prepared their candidates for these public events to varying degrees with the Labour Party organisation proving particularly effective. David Marquand notes that in Aberavon, eventual Labour victory did not rest too heavily on the ‘exalted oratory’ of Ramsay MacDonald at meetings but on ‘careful planning’, preparation and organisation and a network of ‘polling district committees’.³² The Labour Speakers Handbook, priced at one shilling, provided comprehensive responses on almost any given issue across its 161 pages covering 39 topics, with a detailed index for easy reference and speed of reply, and in a long, thin envelope style for convenient carrying in an inner pocket. Its domestic topics included finance, Labour and the rates, taxation of land values, unemployment, trades unions and trade boards. Answers on foreign, imperial and military affairs were also provided with sections on disarmament, India, reparations, Egypt, Russia and Ireland. Several sections covering such things as maternity and pensions for women and children were targeted very much at women voters. Noteworthy was the fact that during the campaign, addenda and updates to the handbook were issued (at least ninety-four) by the central party to respond to areas of particular interest or where the lines taken by other parties necessitated a change or an adjustment of emphasis.³³ Just as important was a foreword by Arthur Henderson, the chief whip, that emphasised that Labour was no longer simply the party of the working classes, but rather it strove for a new order in the ‘human interest’.³⁴ This was ‘effective fighting ammunition’ for a party trying to reach out beyond its core base to the middle classes.³⁵

Life on the stump for candidates in urban areas offered considerable challenges of organisation and timing. Meetings in urban areas could run into surprising problems, especially in securing venues. At the outset of his campaign Christopher Addison in Shoreditch allocated £35.00 for booking meeting venues but still found it difficult to find suitable premises as so many schools were booked out after 5 p.m. for London County Council evening classes.³⁶

Meanwhile in the rural areas large distances had to be traversed often in the interest of addressing just a handful of people in remote villages. The use of a car was all but essential in the more rural areas. For example, in the Tiverton constituency where Herbert Sparkes was the hopeful Conservative candidate, the distances involved in a large rural constituency called for military precision to facilitate speaking appearances in the organisation of meetings in some of the smaller villages. The diary of his wife, preserved in the Devon Record Office, contains some loose pages providing the evening speaking itinerary for her husband in early November. By grouping particular villages together (separated by two to five miles), and by utilising support speakers to hold the fort, or round off, it was possible to hop from one meeting to another by car, across a two-hour period making a starring performance before moving on to the next event.³⁷

To support how these election events were reported the Labour Party Press Bureau went out of its way to make the life of the political journalist that bit easier, and to shape the way that the activities of their candidates were seen. For the benefit of the press, Labour maintained a central collection of candidates’ mini-biographies, drawn up by means of a form, to shape and humanise how candidates might be reported in the newspapers.³⁸ To the fore in the reports was trade union work, wartime experiences, church and public service.³⁹ This provided some human context to the campaign material and election meetings.

The visual look

The growing influence of the visual medium, including newsreels, made itself felt on the 1922 General Election. While the politicians had a good understanding of platform rhetoric and written appeals to the electors, just how did they combine this with an understanding of visual media to help convey their message? Beyond a display of rosettes with party colours, election rallies lacked the kind of branding and visual signifiers that became steadily more present in twentieth-century elections. In some cases, a lack of understanding of the visual message led to some curious choices. For example, for Bonar Law’s appearance in front of a women’s rally the set dressers at the Drury Lane theatre arranged for a painted backdrop of a medieval cathedral which unfortunately made him look in the eyes of one correspondent like ‘a stained-glass martyr’.⁴⁰ Large placards carrying the name of the candidate and invocation to vote for them were also a feature of the election common to various parties. The messages were usually simple, ‘Horne for Hillhead’, ran those for Conservative Robert Horne in Glasgow.⁴¹ Sometimes the messages were more complex. In East Edinburgh for example, ex-soldier Colonel Sam MacDonald for the Coalition Liberals ran placards proclaiming: ‘MacDonald fought for you in Flanders; Send Him to Fight for you in Westminster’.⁴² In the case of the Coalition Liberals, placards might display an image of Lloyd George with the message to vote National Liberal. In Bonar Law’s Glasgow Central constituency one particularly interesting placard featured an image of a bearded Russian. Underneath it read: ‘He wants you to vote Socialist. Don’t’.⁴³ Placards were considered particularly effective when they could be placed on the side of a motor car. Perhaps lacking the funding of the other party, Labour Party supporters (and occasionally those of other parties) sometimes used chalk to create their own pavement placards in support of their candidates.

Election addresses frequently carried images of the candidates in either their best clothes or, for ex-servicemen, in uniform. In Birmingham, Handsworth the election leaflet for Oliver Locker Lampson DSO (Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve), carried a head and shoulders image of him in service dress.⁴⁴

The Labour Party included sketch images to supplement many of its election leaflets. For example, an image of two men talking with a church in the background accompanied the leaflet ‘Job’s Talks: Voting Labour’.⁴⁵ With the ‘patience of Job’ the leaflet details the conversation as a Labour candidate convinces John Smith (the carpenter) to vote Labour as the only party that will do anything for him. The image of the church backed by religious allusions in the text (Job from the Old Testament and the ordinary voter who shares with Jesus Christ the profession of carpenter) turn a political pamphlet into a neo-religious tract. Further pamphlets were produced in the ‘Job’s Talks’ series, still using the same imagery and making a similar pitch which dealt with ‘Unemployment’, ‘Housing’ and ‘Lower Taxes for the Workers’. A variation on the pamphlet with an appropriately re-worked sketch, still with the church as the background, was produced advising ‘Why women should vote Labour’.⁴⁶ Sketch-like images could also be found on pamphlets such as ‘What’s Life Like on [sic] the Countryside’ [a fearful and poverty stricken elderly couple], and ‘To the Woman in the Home’ (mother washing the dishes with a child at her side).⁴⁷ These simply produced images reinforced some of the central message of the campaign literature.

At a higher level of production values, and artistic quality, stood a standardised candidate flyer entitled ‘The Labour Policy is the People’s Policy’.⁴⁸ On the front cover an image of the local candidate (which was changed for each constituency), was set in a box, against a background of two other images (a man working at a lathe and a factory worker gazing to the new dawn in the distance), evocative of the kind of socialist art seen typically in union banners. Inside were images of family life in the form of simple line drawings, reminiscent of ‘Job’s Talks’ that supported the text of the flyer under the captions ‘No Food Taxes’ and ‘Houses for the People’.

Labour reached its highest level of artistic ambition with Labour leaflet No. 44. The leaflet entitled ‘The Endless Chain’ reproduced English painter C. R. W. Nevinson’s (1889–1946) 1917 lithograph entitled ‘Loading the Ship’.⁴⁹ Drawing on cubist, vorticist and futurist influences, and his experiences of painting the horrors of trench warfare, Nevinson’s image showed men labouring under the weight of heavy burdens. Strikingly it was coupled with a poem by English writer Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965). The leaflet made no overt political point but the image, combined with a poem that evoked the idea of men as the flesh and bone parts of a machine in perpetual motion, was clear in its sympathies.

For the Labour Party the different types of imagery at play in some of the election material, from simple portrait photographs, to images inspired by religious tracts, the trade union movement, and the latest currents in European Art and culture, seem to have been arrived at accidentally rather than as part of a concerted policy to produce different kinds of campaign literature to appeal to different sections of the electorate. The diversity reflected the character of a Labour Party which by 1922 encapsulated the middle-class graduates of the Fabian society through to those whose place of learning was the factory floor and the chapel.

Throughout the election the volume of printed material produced for the voter was considerable. One commentator wrote:

‘Never has there been such a flood of appeals to the electors on paper. The output of the Conservatives totalled fifty tons, including nineteen million leaflets and three hundred thousand posters. Labour sent out forty tons, the leaflets alone numbering eighteen millions. The Independent Liberals distributed thirty tons, the leaflets numbering fifteen millions; and the National Liberals ten tons, including four million leaflets’.⁵⁰

The women’s vote

All parties recognised the importance of the women’s vote following the enfranchisement of women over thirty in the 1918 election. In some constituencies it was especially important because, despite the unequal franchise, women constituted the majority of registered electors. Cheltenham was one such constituency with women voters (12,052) marginally outnumbering male voters (11,925).⁵¹ How to garner their votes in 1922 exercised the party leaderships, agents and constituency workers. The Conservative approach was not to treat women differently and to refuse to acknowledge that there might be such things as ‘womens’ issues’ that might be targeted by particular means. For example, at several points during the campaign Bonar Law spoke to rallies of women voters, but rhetorically he was at pains to suggest that, while women and men might have a slightly different outlook, they were united on the issues. He considered

‘women were a little more cautious, a little less inclined to try rash experiments than men … [but that this] was an element which would strengthen and not weaken the Constitution of a country like ours. (Cheers.) He had no special message for women – indeed, had not two ways of speaking at all. He addressed all audiences – as he did in the House of Commons – as reasonable human beings’.⁵²

Despite his protestations of gender-blindness, Bonar Law nevertheless sent a letter for publication and circulation as a pamphlet to Viscountess Caroline Bridgeman (1864–1935) in her role as chair of the Conservative Women’s Organisation (CWO). The CWO had been officially founded in 1919 (though it would not be formally affiliated to the party until 1928) as a grassroots organisation to provide a focus for Conservative women and as a means to capture the women’s vote. In the letter Bonar Law proclaimed ‘I have been a consistent supporter of women’s suffrage’, and made reference to ‘all the special questions in which they are particularly interested’.⁵³

The eagerness with which women embraced the campaign of 1922 can be glimpsed in an address given by Bonar Law to a ‘packed’ women’s only audience at the Drury Lane theatre in London on Thursday 2 November.⁵⁴ More than 2,250 women packed the theatre to hear Bonar Law give a speech that was heavy on foreign policy issues. The remarkable thing is that more than 8,000 had applied for tickets.⁵⁵ One correspondent gave a detailed reading of the performance, praising Bonar Law for addressing his audience not as women but ‘as citizens, nay more, as though they were acute and trained politicians on the floor of the House of Commons’. The correspondent praised Bonar Law for not simply trying to appeal to women on the basis of the cost of living (‘threepenny loaf and tea at 1s. 2d.), or of making emotional appeals like Lloyd George on the basis of ‘ “sob stuff” about the horrors of war, the anguish of bereaved mothers and his own mission to ensure peace’.⁵⁶

Some constituencies during the election saw the holding of women-only meetings by candidates in addition to mixed-sex open meetings. Such meetings were, in part, a recognition of the practicalities of childcare with women perhaps unable to attend evening meetings because of the need to get children fed and into bed after school. They were a particular feature of the campaign run by Harold Morris for the Coalition Liberals in East Bristol. His campaign engagements included:

7 November – 3 p.m. address at St Michael’s Parish Hall (Women Only), 7 p.m. St. Silas School, 8 p.m. at St Anne’s Council School;

8 November – 7 p.m. address at Avonvale Road Council, 8 p.m. at St Gabriel’s School;

9 November – 3 p.m. address at St Mark’s Lecture Hall (Women Only), 7.30 p.m. Bedfield Council School, 8.00 p.m. Crew’s Hole Methodist School;

10 November – 3 p.m. address at St Matthew’s Parish Hall (Women Only), 8 p.m. St. Michael’s Parish Hall.⁵⁷

Some of these attempts to engage the woman voter were almost comic in their lack of engaging content. The women voters of the Liverpool Exchange division were treated to a lengthy oration (his draft speech ran for thirty-six pages) by Sir Leslie Scott that consisted entirely of a close reading of Labour Party policy and a detailed analysis of the evils and contradictions of socialism. Conservative Party policy was not mentioned and only at the end of his paper did the Conservative Coalitionist reach his punchline and his point: that the two main parties in Britain had no right to let the Labour Party get its hands on power.⁵⁸

Elsewhere candidates attempted to engage women voters on a more relatable level. In Shoreditch, for example, Dorothy Thurtle, the wife of the Labour candidate, assured the women voters of the constituency that her husband had ‘many faults (all husbands have!) but I think I can truthfully say that he is honest and sincere, and, if elected, will fight your battles to the best of his ability’.⁵⁹ Wrapped around with assurances that she was an East End woman, Mrs Thurtle’s intervention was disarmingly charming.

Only a handful of associations were prepared to run what they saw as the perceived risk of having a woman candidate on the ballot, but they did incite considerable press interest, including from the Daily Mirror, which carried photographs of three of the candidates on its front page on 30 October.⁶⁰ By nomination day twenty-six women candidates had been put forward in the constituencies: a moderate increase on the seventeen who had stood in 1918, and many of them were considered ‘safe’ candidates. Some eight of them, like Nancy Astor elected in 1919, had aristocratic connections and could be considered to be from known political backgrounds.

Elsewhere, the wives of male candidates were prepared to do their bit to get the female vote out in support of their husbands. In the Birmingham Ladywood constituency, ‘Mrs Neville Chamberlain’ advised women voters to vote for her husband because she knew that he had their interests at heart.⁶¹

At every turn, women were making their presence felt in the election, but the parties were still very much feeling their way as to how to capitalise on the woman’s vote.

Disruption of election meetings

In some areas the behaviour of Labour supporters probably did much to reinforce the perceived need for a party pact. In Dundee, Churchill experienced a particularly brutal reception from left-wing and Irish elements determined to prevent him from speaking. As William Walker has noted, faced with a determined effort to disrupt his campaign, the Churchill campaign ‘could neither understand nor effectively counter it’.⁶² Churchill was not the only one to meet such hostility, with the Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer condemning the ‘hooliganism of the Socialist-Communists’ being visited on Sir Alfred Yeo in Poplar, a noted hotbed of civic Labourism, and in other constituencies including Norwich, Penryn and Falmouth.⁶³ In the Glasgow Bridgeton Division, Alexander MacCallum Scott,⁶⁴ chief whip for the Scottish Coalition Liberals, responded forcefully by calling meetings in which he expounded the principles of Marxism before pulling them apart for the benefit of his audience.⁶⁵

In some cases, quick-witted responses could still win difficult audiences. For example, in the Southampton constituency where two Coalition Liberals who had first won the seat in 1906 were facing a challenge from the Conservatives and Labour, local dockers gave Tory speakers a hard time. The Duke of Northumberland, with his mining connections, was given a particularly difficult reception. Fortunately, also with him on the platform was the Australian singer Nellie Melba. As she spoke in favour of the Conservative candidates she was heckled with a cry of ‘Give us a song, Nellie’.⁶⁶ She retorted by saying that she would, but only if the audience listened to her afterwards. The crowd roared back ‘We will’. Taking to the piano on stage she sang ‘Home Sweet Home’ before going on to praise the Conservative candidates as honourable men, loyal to the cause of Empire.

Notes

1. 1  ‘Mr Bonar Law’s Manifesto’, Western Morning News, 27 October 1922, 4.

2. 2  Maurice Cowling, The Impact of Labour, 1920–1924, 213–36.

3. 3  Liberal Party Manifesto 1922, http://www.libdemmanifesto.com/1922/1922-liberal-manifesto.shtml accessed 25 June 2020.

4. 4  ‘Mr McKenna’, 26 October 1922, British Pathé Film Archive, Film Id.286.27

5. 5  Ramsden, The Age of Balfour and Baldwin, 1902–1940, 170.

6. 6  Secretary’s Annual Report for 1921, Conservative and Unionist Association (Lincoln Division), Lincoln Record Office, Misc Don1095/1/1/1.

7. 7  F. M. Leventhal, Arthur Henderson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1989), 101.

8. 8  Sir Robert Newman (1871–1945), Conservative/Independent Conservative MP for Exeter (1918–31).

9. 9  ‘Exeter Parliamentary Election’, Western Morning News, 31 October 1922, 1.

10. 10  Sir William Bull election address, 1 November 1922, Bull Papers 5/6, Churchill College Cambridge.

11. 11  ‘Contests for West London’, The Times, 6 November 1922, 14.

12. 12  Harold Morris (1876–1967), Coalition Liberal MP for Bristol East 1922–23.

13. 13  ‘To the Electors of Bristol East’, Western Daily Press, 7 November 1922, 4.

14. 14  ‘To the Electors of Bristol East’, Western Daily Press, 7 November 1922, 4.

15. 15  Henry Betterton, 1st Baron Rushcliffe (1872–1949), Conservative MP for Rushcliffe (1918–34), Minister of Labour 1931–4.

16. 16  ‘Election Address’, South Notts Echo, 11 November 1922, 4.

17. 17  Oliver Locker Lampson (1880–1954), Coalition Conservative and later Conservative MP for Huntingdonshire (1918–22), Handsworth, Birmingham (1922–45).

18. 18  ‘Oliver Locker Lampson election address, 1922’, Birmingham Parliamentary Elections 1918–22, LFF76.8 (14/5521), Local Studies and History Department, Birmingham Central Library.

19. 19  ‘Election Address’, Western Morning News, 8 November 1922, 1.

20. 20  ‘Shoreditch needs the Dr’, campaign poster, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 f97.

21. 21  ‘Estimate of election expenses’, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 f207.

22. 22  ‘Addison’, campaign literature, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 f143.

23. 23  ‘A Vote for Price’ and ‘Vote for Thurtle the Labour Party Candidate’, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 ff100–104.

24. 24  See Addison to Lord Gladstone, 13 December 1922, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 ff241–242.

25. 25  ‘Biographical Notices of Labour Candidates’, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

26. 26  Report of the 23rd Annual Conference, 42, Labour Party Archive, People’s History Museum.

27. 27  See, for example, ‘Croft’, Brig. Gen. Henry Page’ GE1922 No. 22, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

28. 28  For the 1922 General Election nine memos were produced (this would rise to thirty-nine in 1923). For the 1922 General Election see for example, ‘Labour Party’s Election Manifesto’, ‘Mr Bonar Law and the Capital Levy’, ‘Labour Party’s Agricultural Policy’, ‘War Pensions Answered’, Conservative Party Archive: Printed and Published Material: General Election Memos, CPA PUB456 1 ff1–27.

29. 29  ‘Binstead Drill Hall’, Isle of Wight Observer, 11 November 1922, 2.

30. 30  ‘Isle of Wight Parliamentary Election Card for Sir Edgar Chatfeild-Clarke’, Isle of Wight Record Office, AC2019/7.

31. 31  ‘North Bristol Parliamentary Election’, Western Daily Press, 7 November 1922, 4.

32. 32  Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald, 281.

33. 33  See, for example, Joint Research and Information Department’s notes on ‘Roman Catholic Schools’, General Election [Hereafter GE1922] 1922 No. 3a, ‘Tory War Policy’, GE1922 No. 4, ‘Unemployment’, GE1922 No. 5, ‘Housing’, GE1922 No. 10, ‘Notes on Labour Party Manifesto Regarding Taxation’, GE1922 No. 18, ‘The Conservatives and Military Alliances’, GE1922 No. 94, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

34. 34  Foreword by Arthur Henderson, The Labour Speaker’s Handbook (London: Labour Party, 1922), p.v. Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

35. 35  Labour Speaker’s Handbook, p.v., Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

36. 36  ‘Estimate of campaign expenses’, 19 October 1922, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 f207.

37. 37  Loose pages in Emily Sparkes Diary, November 1922, Devon Record Office SPA/F/2/32.

38. 38  Form ‘General Election Publicity Campaign’, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

39. 39  Biographical notices of Labour candidates, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

40. 40  ‘London Day by Day’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 November 1922, 6.

41. 41  ‘Scenes in Glasgow’, The Scotsman, 16 November 1922, 6.

42. 42  ‘East Division’, The Scotsman, 16 November 1922, 6.

43. 43  ‘The Premier’s Constituency’, The Scotsman, 16 November 1922, 6.

44. 44  ‘Oliver Locker Lampson election address, 1922’, Birmingham Parliamentary Elections 1918–22, LFF76.8 (14/5521), Local Studies and History Department, Birmingham Central Library.

45. 45  ‘Job’s Talks’, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

46. 46  ‘Mrs Job’s Talks’, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

47. 47  ‘What’s Life Like on the Countryside’, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

48. 48  ‘The Labour Policy is the People’s Policy’, copies for E. Picton-Tuberville (Islington North), J. W. Bowen (Newport), Charles G. Ammon (Camberwell North), H. W. Wallace (Bury), Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1. For G. Ammon in 1922 see volume of press cuttings relating to Lord Ammon, Vol. 1, 1920–1922, Ammon Papers, Hull History Centre. U DMN/3/1.

49. 49  ‘The Endless Chain’, Labour leaflet No. 44, Labour Party Archive, LP/ELEC/1922/1.

50. 50  ‘A Flood of Literature’, The Western Morning News and Mercury, 16 November 1922, 4.

51. 51  ‘Contest in Cheltenham’, Gloucestershire Echo, 15 November 1922, 6.

52. 52  ‘General Election Polls Today’, Belfast News-Letter, 15 November 1922, 5.

53. 53  Bonar Law to Mrs Bridgeman, 8 November 1922, Bridgeman papers, Shropshire Archives, X4629/1/1922/359/1.

54. 54  ‘Prime Minister’s Great Meeting for Women’, Daily Mirror, 3 November 1922, 1.

55. 55  ‘Disraeli’s Aim’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 November 1922, 7.

56. 56  ‘London Day by Day’, Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3 November 1922, 6.

57. 57  ‘Bristol East Parliamentary Division’, Western Daily Press, 7 November 1922, 4.

58. 58  Typescript Address by Sir Leslie Scott to Women Voters in his Constituency (undated), Scott Papers, Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick, MSS.119/3/S/LI/16.

59. 59  ‘A word from Mrs Thurtle’, Bodleian Library, MS Addison dep. C.197 f102.

60. 60  ‘29 Woman Candidates’, The Daily Mirror, 30 October 1922, 1.

61. 61  Anne Chamberlain to the electors of Ladywood and Rotton Park, 11 November 1922, Neville Chamberlain papers, NC5/12/16.

62. 62  William M. Walker, ‘Dundee’s Disenchantment with Churchill: A Comment upon the Downfall of the Liberal Party’, The Scottish Historical Review 49, no.147, Pt. 1 (1970), 85–108 (107).

63. 63  ‘National Liberals Lying Low’, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10 November 1922, 8.

64. 64  Alexander Scott MacCallum (1874–1928), Liberal and Coalition Liberal MP for Glasgow Bridgeton (1910–22).

65. 65  ‘National Liberals Lying Low’, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 10 November 1922, 8.

66. 66  ‘Remarkable election meeting Scene’, Belfast News-Letter, 15 November 1922, 5.