1918–1922 Parliament of the United Kingdom | |||||
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![]() Palace of Westminster in 1919 | |||||
Overview | |||||
Legislative body | Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||||
Term | 14 December 1918 | – 15 November 1922||||
Election | 1918 United Kingdom general election | ||||
Government | Lloyd George ministry | ||||
House of Commons | |||||
Members | 707 | ||||
Speaker | James Lowther (until 1921) John Henry Whitley (from 1921) | ||||
Leader | Bonar Law (until 1921) Austen Chamberlain (from 1921) | ||||
Prime Minister | David Lloyd George | ||||
Leader of the Opposition | Sir Donald Maclean (until 1920) H. H. Asquith (from 1920) | ||||
Third-party leader | Éamon de Valera or William Adamson | ||||
House of Lords | |||||
Lord Chancellor | Robert Finlay, 1st Viscount Finlay (until 1919) F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead (from 1919) | ||||
Leader of the House of Lords | George Curzon, 1st Marquess Curzon of Kedleston |
This is a list of members of Parliament (MPs) elected in the 1918 general election. This Parliament was elected on 14 December 1918, assembled on 4 February 1919 and was dissolved on 26 October 1922.
The normal polling day did not apply to the university constituencies (polls open for five days) and Orkney and Shetland (poll open two days). Votes in the territorial constituencies were not counted until 28 December 1918 to allow time for postal votes from members of the armed forces to arrive.
Coalition and Non-Coalition: In most constituencies in Great Britain one supporter of the coalition government, led by David Lloyd George (the Liberal Prime Minister) and Bonar Law (the Conservative leader), was issued the so-called coupon. Candidates elected as Liberals or Conservatives, without the coupon, were not necessarily hostile to the government. This list follows the label used in F.W.S. Craig's book cited below. No attempt is made to indicate changes between the Coalition and Non-Coalition wings of a party. Few coupons were issued to Irish candidates, so none are designated as Coalition MPs.
Conservative and Unionist MPs: Conservative, Irish Unionist, Labour Unionist and Ulster Unionist MPs constituted a single party in Parliament. Candidates of the Ulster Unionist Council are classified as Irish Unionists until May 1921 and Ulster Unionists thereafter. The only Unionists, in this Parliament, not to be from Ulster constituencies represented Dublin Rathmines and Dublin University.
The Parliament of 1918–22 had a poor reputation with contemporaries: John Maynard Keynes' "The Economic Consequences of the Peace" includes a famous remark about the Conservative MPs that "They are a lot of hard-faced men, who look as if they had done very well out of the war" which Keynes attributed to a Conservative friend.[1] Keynes privately confirmed that the friend who originated the remark was Stanley Baldwin.[2]
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