Ymgyrchu! - The Ballot Box - Elections - 1906 and the Liberal Party

1906 General Election and the Liberal Party

1906 General Election result in Wales

Liberals 28

Lib-Lab 04

Labour (LRC) 01

ILP 01

Conservative 00

The Liberal Party won an astounding victory in the 1906 General Election. In the new Parliament there were 377 Liberals (including the Lib/Labs), 157 Conservatives, 83 Irish Nationalists and 29 Independent Labour Party representatives. It was the Conservative Party leader, Joseph Chamberlain's campaign for a tax on foreign goods that was partly responsible for the Liberal Party's success.

In Wales the Liberals won 28 seats and at the same time the Conservatives lost every seat in Wales, despite winning 33.8% of the vote. As well as the Liberals, there were four Lib/Lab, one ILP and one Labour representative.

John Williams was the Independent Labour Party (ILP) representative in Gower, and Keir Hardie was the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) representative in one of the two Merthyr seats. Keir Hardie (1856-1915) founded the ILP and he was the first socialist MP in Wales. He was elected to represent one of the two Merthyr Tydfil seats for the first time in 1900.

The Liberal Party was founded in June 1859 when Whigs, supporters of Peel and Radicals came together in London to fight for freedom of conscience and civil rights and to oppose the Conservative Party.

The Liberal Party had a radical tradition in Wales. The party was in power under the leadership of Gladstone four times during the nineteenth century, and at the beginning of the twentieth century Asquith and then Lloyd George became Liberal Prime Ministers.

In 1888 Stuart Rendel was elected as Chairman of the Welsh Parliamentary Party, the first acknowledgment of the importance of the Welsh Liberals. David Lloyd George (1863-1945) was one of the most important Liberals of the period and one of the most notable Welsh politicians of any era.

He was elected MP for Caernarvon Borough in April 1890 when he was only 27 years old. Between 1892 and 1895 he played a prominent role in parliament over the Disestablishment question. He became President of the Board of Trade in 1905, and then Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1908 to 1915, when he became Minister of Munitions. He spent a few months as War Minister in 1916 before becoming Prime Minister.

Lloyd George and his Cabinet, 1916 (43K)

With increased competition coming from the Labour and Conservative parties as well as internal friction, the Liberal Party suffered a huge fall in support in the years after the 1906 triumph. It became the third party in British politics and by the time of the 1950 General Election it only had nine MPs in Britain, five of whom were from Wales.

When Clement Davies (1884-1962), MP for Montgomeryshire since 1929 and party leader between 1945 and 1956, died, the Liberals held only two seats in Wales, namely Ceredigion (Roderic Bowen) and Montgomeryshire (Emlyn Hooson).

General Election 1906 and the Liberal Party
General Election 1966 and the Labour Party
General Election 1983 and the Conservative Party
The National Assembly for Wales Election 1999 and Plaid Cymru / The Party of Wales

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