1914 Ipswich by-election

The Ipswich by-election was a Parliamentary by-election. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

Silvester Horne had been one of the Liberal MPs for the dual member seat of Ipswich since the January 1910 elections. In 1914, returning from New York, he was taken ill suddenly and died.

In terms of a purely party vote, the votes cast for the party ticket were as follows;

Masterman had personal misgiving about contesting Ipswich; "It was an area of small employers, hostile to Insurance. It was a very Protestant area, reluctant about Home Rule. The local Liberals were enthusiastic and pressed hard for him to come, and Mr. Illingworth (Liberal Chief Whip) did not see how to refuse them."

The campaign was dominated by the National Insurance Act introduced by Masterman in 1911. Both the Unionist and Socialist candidates attacked the Act. On 22 May 1914 David Lloyd George a close ally of Masterman, visited the constituency to speak for the Liberal campaign. He attacked the Unionists for their behaviour over Ulster which he considered a threat to constitutional government. Unionists had given support to a possible call to arms to resist the introduction of the Liberals Irish Home Rule Bill. He also emphasised the benefits of National Insurance and Old Age Pensions.

This was the last contested by-election to take place before the outbreak of the Great War, after which, the main political parties agreed an electoral truce.

Scurr threatened that he would continue to harass Masterman by standing against him wherever he was a candidate. He never stood against Masterman again.

Masterman's defeat forced him to resign from the Government. At the 1918 elections he unsuccessfully fought West Ham Stratford. A general election was due to take place by the end of 1915. By the autumn of 1914, the following candidates had been adopted to contest that election. Due to the outbreak of war, the election never took place.

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