1918 Wansbeck by-election

The by-election was caused by the death on 20 April 1918 of the sitting Liberal MP Rt Hon.

[4] As participants in the wartime coalition with Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, the Conservatives chose not to contest the by-election.

Despite the Liberal tradition in Wansbeck, and the fact that Fenwick had been unopposed at the last general election, and despite the wartime electoral party truce, the local Labour Party decided to contest the by-election and selected a local 34-year-old coal miner from Ashington, Ebenezer Edwards.

[5] The result was a narrow endorsement by the electorate for the government’s handling of the war effort, both in military terms and industrially on the home front.

[6] Soon after the Wansbeck result Labour’s National Executive Committee formally refused to renew the wartime truce between the political parties.