1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election

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1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
← 1896 3 May 1900 1900 →
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Candidate Sir John Batty Tuke
Party Conservative
MP before election

Priestley
Conservative

 Subsequent MP

Tuke
Conservative

The 1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in Scotland on 3 May 1900 for the House of Commons constituency of Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities.[1]

As a university constituency, the constituency had no geographical basis. Instead, its electorate consisted of the graduates of Edinburgh University and St Andrews University.

Vacancy

The by-election was held to fill the vacancy caused by the death on 11 April 1900 of 70-year-old Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Sir William Overend Priestley.[2] An eminent obstetrician, Priestley had held the seat since a by-election in May 1896.[3]

Candidates

The Conservative Party selected as its candidate the 65-year-old Sir John Batty Tuke. He was a Yorkshire-born, Edinburgh-educated, pioneering psychiatrist based at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, who had been knighted in 1898.[4]

Nomination day was set as Thursday 3 May,[5] but the seat had last been contested at the 1885 general election.[3] The Conservatives did not expect a contest in the by-election,[4] and speculation that the novelist J. M. Barrie would stand as a Liberal Party candidate ended on 30 April when Barrie sent a telegram declining nomination.[6]

Result

The nomination process was held in the Senate Hall of the University of Edinburgh on 3 May 1900, where the Principal Sir William Muir presided over a gathering of only about 20 people. Tuke was nominated by Professor Thomas Annandale of Edinburgh, and seconded by Professor Scott Lang of the University of St Andrews.[7]

No other candidate was nominated, so Tuke was declared elected.[7][3]

Aftermath

Tuke was re-elected unopposed at the general election in September/October 1900. At the 1906 general election, he was re-elected in a two-way contest with John Strachey (journalist), a Free Trader.[3] He stood down at the January 1910 general election.[3]

See also

References

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