20 September 1916

Sir Charles Seely wins the Mansfield by-election

Liberal candidate Sir Charles Seely wins the Mansfield by-election with a majority of 3,141 votes over his independent opponent Dr Arthur Turnbull of Glasgow. Turnbull was a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps and Secretary of an organisation called the National Union Covenant backed by Horatio Bottomley, and strongly pro-War. Seely came from a highly political family. He was a former Liberal Unionist, although his father had been Liberal MP for Nottingham seats before himself leaving the party over Home Rule. Seely faced no opposition from the Tory or Labour parties thanks to the wartime truce but Turnbull’s intervention muddied the waters and his 36% of poll was a warning to the government that popular opinion favoured a stronger prosecution of the war than Asquith’s coalition was perceived as giving.