London County Council election, 1913

← 1910

5 March 1913

1919 →

118 Council Seats

	First party	Second party	Third party

Leader	Cyril Jackson	Sir John Benn	none
Party	Municipal Reform	Progressive	Labour
Leader since	1911
Leader's seat	Limehouse	Kennington
Last election	60	55	3
Seats won	67	50	1
Seat change	+7	-6	-2
Councillors	67	50	1
Aldermen	15	4	0
Seats +/–	7	5	2

An election to the County Council of London took place on 5 March 1913. It was the ninth triennial election of the whole Council. The size of the council was 118 councillors and 19 aldermen. The councillors were elected for electoral divisions corresponding to the parliamentary constituencies that had been created by the Representation of the People Act 1884. There were 57 dual member constituencies and one four member constituency. The Council was elected by First Past the Post with each elector having two votes in the dual member seats. Unlike for parliamentary elections, women qualified as electors for these elections on exactly the same basis as men. Women were also permitted to stand as candidates for election.

The election was to be the last held before the outbreak of the First World War: in 1915 legislation was enacted to postpone all local elections until the end of the conflict (see below). The term of office of the councillors was extended to 1919 when triennial elections resumed.

The Prime Minister of the day was the Liberal H. H. Asquith who led a minority Liberal Government that relied upon the Irish Parliamentary Party for a majority. The recently merged Unionist Party was the official opposition. The Labour Party was the fourth party and generally voted with the Liberals in parliament.

The Municipal Reform party had been in power since winning a majority back in 1907. It was now seeking its third consecutive mandate.

All constituencies were contested. The governing Municipal Reform Party ran a full slate of 118 candidates. The opposition Progressive Party ran 110 candidates. They ran candidates everywhere except the City of London where they ran three candidates, Hampstead, St George's Hanover Square and Strand where only one candidate stood, three constituencies where one candidate ran in tandem with Labour and Woolwich where they did not oppose a Labour pair. Four Independents also ran.

By 1913, all Labour Party members had withdrawn from the Progressive Party and at these elections stood under their own party label. The party fielded ten candidates, three of these candidates ran in tandem with Progressive candidates, a further two candidates were not opposed by Progressives. The other five all stood in opposition to Progressive candidates. The Labour Party in London had no elected or otherwise recognised Leader.

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