Letter: History of Stroud General Elections

Now that PM Rishi Sunak has announced that the next General Election will be in July it is worthwhile reviewing past Stroud election results for help in predicting our own constituency’s outcome.

Stroud Parliamentary Boundary was created by the First Reform Act in 1832 and until1885 sent two MPs to Westminster.

From 1832 until1853 Stroud was solely represented by the Whig Party and from 1886 by the Liberals with just one Conservative. The best known name during this period was future Prime Minister Lord John Russell: - elected in an 1853 by-election. In 1841 George JP Scrope received 527 votes and was elected with the lowest number ever in Stroud for a winning Parliamentary candidate.

From 1885 until 1950 the constituency was known as Stroud division of Gloucestershire sending just one MP to Westminster. During this period Stroud was a marginal constituency, generally changing hands in each subsequent General Election. 11 men represented the ward with a breakdown of Liberal (5 wins), Conservative (4 wins), Unionist (1 win) and Labour (1 win).

Many of the men representing the constituency during this period were larger than life characters: One well known name during this era is George Holloway (Conservative) who represented the ward from 1886 until his death in 1892 and whose statue stands in town centre at Rowcroft. A clothing manufacturer, he was once the largest employer in Stroud.

George with his brother Henry arrived in Stroud in 1849 and, in conjunction with Mathew Crowe, ran a clothing wholesale manufacturing business at 60/61 High Street, Stroud – the business later moved to Threadneedle Street where the new, revolutionary steam-powered sewing machine was introduced. The business continued to prosper with branches in London, Liverpool and Bristol.

George was regarded as a great benefactor to the town. He was a J.P., and the man who brought sewing machines and ready-to-wear clothing to England.

George was founder of the Mid-Gloucester Working Men’s Conservative Association which became Holloway Friendly Society Limited and was the first to offer disability insurance in the UK. By paying a suggested seven old pence (2.5p) per week, members could ensure sickness benefit of at least five shillings (25p) a week and a lump sum on retirement at 65. His agricultural interests led to the formation of the Cottage Building Society, whereby a tenant could buy his £150 six bedroom cottage by paying monthly instalments of £8 10s. the payments decreasing each year.

Charles Allen (Liberal) represented Stroud from 1900 to 1918. In 1884 Allen was selected to play for Wales in the opening match of the Rugby Union Home Nations Championship against England, the country of his birth. Wales lost but it was Allen who scored the only Welsh try, the first points the Welsh team had ever scored against the English.

Although an elected MP Charles gallantly served his country during World War I, as a major in the Gloucestershire Regiment.

An interesting character was Charles Cripps who in 1895 was officially elected as a Conservative but declared himself a Unionist. He later claimed he was a supporter of the Liberal Party and in 1923 joined the Labour Party.

Another name that springs out is Sir Ashton Lister (Liberal), founder of agricultural machinery company RA Lister in Dursley. For many decades RA Lister was the biggest employer in the Stroud district.

In 1923 decorated BOER War hero Freddie Guest became the last Liberal parliamentary candidate to win in Stroud. He served just one year before becoming MP for Bristol North in 1924. In 1929 Freddie rejoined the Conservative Party, which he had left in 1904 with his close friend and cousin Winston Churchill following disagreements within the Tory Party concerning ‘protectionism and free trade’. In earlier life Freddie won the bronze medal with the British polo team at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris Sir Frank Nelson KCMG was elected Conservative MP for Stroud division of Gloucestershire in 1924 and re-elected in 1929 but resigned his seat in

1931 for business reasons. Later he became responsible on the executive level for the creation of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) in WW2 and appointed as its chief by order of the War Office.

Walter Perkins (Conservative) won the seat in a 1932 by-election and held it until 1945 when he lost to Wycliffe educated local teacher Ben

Parkin (Labour). At the 1950 general election both Perkins and Parkin

contested the new Stroud and Thornbury constituency: - Perkins took the seat with a majority of only 28 votes.

From 1955 Stroud County Constituency has been largely located within its present boundaries. During this period it has sent six different winning candidates to Westminster: - Conservative (5) and Labour (1).

Sir John Anthony Kershaw MC (Conservative) was Stroud’s MP for 32 years, from 1955 to 1987. He served as a junior minister in the 1970s. He was also a barrister, World War II cavalry officer, amateur rugby player (Harlequins) and company director.

During the Second World War Sir Anthony served with tanks, and was awarded the Military Cross (MC) for his actions north of the Kasserine Gap in Tunisia in 1943. On 21 February he was a brigade staff officer (GSO3) with 26th Armoured Brigade and had command of the brigade command tank.

The brigade commander was commanding from a scout car whose radio broke down. Kershaw, despite heavy machine gun and artillery fire, repeatedly ran from his tank, to the scout car, and back, to take the brigadier's orders, which he then relayed over the tank's radio. The following day, a German counter attack was believed to be imminent.

Kershaw volunteered to man his tank, which had been disabled, to bring additional fire to bear on the advancing forces; despite its vulnerability to artillery fire as it was in full view on a road.

Roger Knapman (Conservative) was elected MP for Stroud in 1987, becoming Vice-Chairman of the Conservative European Affairs Committee. Between

1990 and 1992, he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the armed forces minister. In this capacity he joined the Conservative Monday Club's Foreign Affairs Committee Delegation to the Croatian Government in October 1991 to observe their war of independence against Serbia. He resigned from his government position in order to oppose the Maastricht Treaty. He successfully defended his seat in the 1992 general election and in 1995 became a government whip.

However in 1997 Roger lost his seat and left the Conservative Party to join UKIP where in 2002 he became UKIP’s party leader. He was the first UKIP leader to complete a full four-year term in office before voluntarily resigning.

David Drew (Labour) was MP for Stroud from 1997 to 2010 and 2017 to 2019. A member of the Labour and Co-operative parties, he was Shadow Minister for Farming and Rural Affairs from 2017 to 2019.

David unsuccessfully contested Stroud at the 1992 general election, but defeated incumbent Roger Knapman at the 1997 general election. He increased his majority in 2001 and narrowly held the seat with a majority of 350 votes in 2005. David was defeated by Conservative Neil Carmichael at the 2010 general election. In fact David and Ian contested the Stroud seat against each other in five general elections:

- David: - 3 wins (2001, 2005 & 2017) and Ian: - 2 wins (2010 & 2015).

A member of the Socialist Campaign Group, Drew was considered a backbench rebel having voted against the Iraq War and government anti-terror legislation.

David was a staunch Eurosceptic, and welcomed an endorsement by Stroud's UKIP candidate at the 2010 general election. However, David gave a speech against Prime Minister Theresa May's deal to leave the EU in 2019, saying he feared Brexit would "become one of the biggest domestic policy disasters this country has known."

Neil Carmichael served as Conservative MP for Stroud from 2010 until 2017 but is a complex character. In April 2019, he announced he had left the Conservative Party; he subsequently joined Change UK for which he was an unsuccessful candidate in the East of England constituency at the 2019 European Parliament election. In September 2019, Carmichael joined the Liberal Democrats but left after one year. It is bizarre that Roger Knapman and his Conservative successor Neil Carmichael had diametrical opposite views on Brexit and both left the party after being defeated in General Elections.

Stroud’s current MP, Siobhan Baillie (Conservative) was elected in 2019 and is the first woman to represent the constituency.

She has been a member of the Work and Pensions Select Committee since March 2020.

Siobhan left school aged 17 to work as a legal secretary in Reading, Berkshire attending a law school at weekends and qualified as a family law solicitor in 2010. Prior to being elected, Siobhan was a councillor in the London Borough of Camden and stood as unsuccessful Conservative candidate for Bermondsey and Old Southwark.

Tom Newman

Stroud