Elliott Dodds

George Elliott Dodds (4 March 1889 – 20 February 1977) was a British journalist, newspaper editor, Liberal politician and thinker.

Elliott Dodds was born in Sydenham, in Kent, the son of a tea merchant. He was educated at Mill Hill School and New College, Oxford where he read history. While at Oxford Dodds was editor of Isis magazine and was narrowly defeated for the presidency of the Union. After graduating he worked briefly for Herbert Samuel as his private secretary and tutor to Samuel’s sons. He then went to Jamaica and taught at Calabar High School. He returned to England intending to read for the bar but was drawn instead to journalism accepting the post of leader writer and literary assistant on the Huddersfield Examiner in 1914. He maintained his connection with the Huddersfield Examiner for sixty years, as editor from 1924–1959 and Consulting Editor after that. During the First World War, Dodds lived in London editing the War Pictorial, a government publication designed to bolster civilian morale.

In 1920 Dodds wrote his first book, Is Liberalism Dead? As far as Dodds’ efforts to enter Parliament were concerned, it seemed it was. He tried without success at York in 1922 and 1923, at Halifax in 1929 and at Rochdale in 1931 and 1935. At Rochdale in 1931, Dodds stood in support of the National Government but because of his views on free trade and opposition to tariffs the Conservatives decided to put up their own National candidate thus splitting the anti-Labour vote. Undiscouraged by his defeats, he continued to play a role in the National League of Young Liberals of which he was president from 1932 to 1937 and to write about Liberalism publishing Liberalism in Action in 1922 and The Social Gospel of Liberalism in 1926.

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