On This Day

23 November 1912

Thomas Taylor holds Bolton for the Liberals

The by-election caused by the death of the sitting Liberal MP George Harwood. There was an unexpectedly high turnout in the election of 90%. The town’s Labour vote (the other Bolton MP was Labour) swung solidly behind Thomas Taylor, a Bolton corn merchant and JP, and Taylor put his election down to ‘the unalterable determination of the working people of Lancashire to have nothing to do with Tariff Reform’, which he predicted would raise the price of food and ‘bring starvation again into [working class] homes’.