Charles Butt Stanton

Charles Butt Stanton (7 April 1873 – 6 December 1946) was a British politician, who served as an MP from 1915-22. He entered Parliament by winning one of the two seats for Merthyr Tydfil at a by-election on November 1915 caused by the death of Labour Party founder, Keir Hardie. After the two-member Merthyr Tydfil seat was divided into two single member seats, Stanton focused on the Aberdare division, which he won at the 1918 general election, but lost at the 1922 general election.

The Merthyr By-election of November 1915

Stanton began his political career as a miners' agent at Aberdare where he was a prominent member of the Independent Labour Party. In 1904 he was elected to the Aberdare Urban District Council as a member for the Aberaman Ward. A militant, he was critical of the more moderate approach adopted by the local Labour MP, Keir Hardie.

When the United Kingdom entered the First World War, Stanton became a strong supporter of the national war effort, and publicly opposed Keir Hardie's stance opposed to the war.

Hardie's death, on 2 September 1915, a year after the outbreak of the war, caused a vacancy in one of the two Merthyr Tydfil parliamentary seats. The by-election to fill the vacancy was called for 25 November 1915.

The official Labour choice to succeed Keir Hardie was James Winstone (1863–1921). Winstone was a leader of the miners' union - a miner's agent since 1906, he had served as Vice-President of the South Wales Miners Federation since 1912, and had recently been elected President of the South Wales Federation. He had also been a County Councillor in neighbouring Monmouthshire since 1906, and was a former chairman of the Urban District Councils of both Risca and Abersychan.

...
Wikipedia