The 1900 United Kingdom general election was held between 26 September and 24 October 1900, following the dissolution of Parliament on 25 September. Also referred to as the Khaki Election (the first of several elections to bear this sobriquet), it was held at a time when it was widely believed that the Second Boer War had effectively been won (though in fact it was to continue for another two years).

The Conservative Party, led by Lord Salisbury with their Liberal Unionist allies, secured a large majority of 134 seats, despite securing only 5.6% more votes than Henry Campbell-Bannerman's Liberals. This was largely owing to the Conservatives winning 163 seats that were uncontested by others. The Labour Representation Committee, later to become the Labour Party, participated in a general election for the first time. However, it had only been in existence for a few months; as a result, Keir Hardie and Richard Bell were the only LRC Members of Parliament elected in 1900.

This was the first occasion when Winston Churchill was elected to the House of Commons. He had stood in the same seat, Oldham, at a by-election held the previous year, but had lost. It was also the final general election of the Victorian era, as well as the last one where the leader of either of the two largest parties (and by extension, the incumbent Prime Minister) sat in the House of Lords rather than the House of Commons.

Results

UK General Election 1900
Candidates Votes
Party Leader Stood Elected Gained Unseated Net % of total % No. Net %
  Conservative and Liberal Unionist Marquess of Salisbury 569 402 32 41 −9 60.1 50.2 1,637,683 +1.0
  Liberal Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman 402 183 38 32 +6 27.4 45.1 1,469,500 −0.5
  Irish Parliamentary John Redmond 83 76 2 8 −6 11.3 1.8 57,576 −0.8
  Labour Repr. Cmte. Keir Hardie 15 2 2 0 +2 0.3 1.3 41,900 N/A
  Independent Nationalist N/A 18 6 6 0 +6 0.9 0.7 23,706
  Ind. Conservative N/A 7 0 0 0 0 0 0.4 13,713
  Independent Liberal N/A 3 1 1 0 +1 0.1 0.2 6,423 +0.1
  Independent N/A 3 0 0 0 0 0 0.2 4,800 +0.2
  Scottish Workers Robert Allan 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 3,107 N/A
  Ind. Liberal Unionist N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.1 1,855 N/A
  Independent Labour N/A 1 0 0 0 0 0 0.0 433 +0.0
Total votes cast: 3,260,696.[2]
Electorate: 6,730,935 (4,369,284 in contested seats)
Turnout: 75.1%[3]

Voting summary

Popular vote
Conservative and Liberal Unionist
 
 50.22%
Liberal
 
 45.07%
Irish Parliamentary
 
 1.77%
Labour Repr. Cmte.
 
 1.29%
Others
 
 1.66%

Seats summary

Parliamentary seats
Conservative and Liberal Unionist
 
 60.00%
Liberal
 
 27.31%
Irish Parliamentary
 
 11.34%
Labour Repr. Cmte.
 
 0.30%
Others
 
 1.04%

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Contested the 1895 election as two separate parties, the Irish National League and the Irish National Party, but reunified before 1900.
  2. ^ All parties with more than 1,000 votes shown.
  3. ^ "General Election Results 1885-1979". Archived from the original on 30 January 2012. Retrieved 25 June 2022.

References

External links

Manifestos