Bridgwater by-election, 1938

The Bridgwater by-election, 1938 was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Bridgwater, Somerset held on 17 November 1938.

The by-election was triggered when Reginald Croom-Johnson, the sitting Conservative member was appointed a High Court Judge in October 1938 which required him to resign his seat in parliament. He had been MP here since holding the seat in 1929.

Ever since the constituency was created in 1885, the Conservatives had won the seat, with the exception of the Liberal landslide of 1906 and the General Election of 1923, when the Liberals had won. The Labour party had always polled poorly and always coming last, except in 1923 when the Liberals won. At the last General Election, the Liberal challenge was not as strong as it had been;

On 29 September 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had signed the Munich Agreement, handing over the Sudetenland to German control. This issue polarised British politics at the time, with many Labour supporters, Liberals, and some Conservatives strongly opposed to this policy of appeasement. Many by-elections in the autumn of 1938 were fought around this issue, notably the Oxford by-election, where Liberals and Labour united in support of an Independent anti-appeasement candidate.

The Conservative Party selected 26-year-old lawyer and former Territorial Army officer Patrick Gerald Heathcoat-Amory of Tiverton as its candidate. He was thought to be assured of a sizeable agricultural vote, half of the electorate lived in rural areas at this time.

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