Arthur Fell
After a notorious legal case in 1906 where a biased judge dismissed an election petition against him, Fell sat in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1922 for Great Yarmouth.
[5] Fell moved from law into business, becoming involved in a range of companies including three of which he was chairman: the African City Properties Trust, the Siberian Syndicate and the Spassky Copper Mine.
[9] An election petition was lodged against the result by the defeated Liberal Party candidate Martin White,[10] alleging a range of illegal practices including bribery and treating of voters by Fell and his agents.
[11] However, the judges found that on election day a Mr John George Baker[12] had give some fifteen people a small amount of money, usually a shilling or a half-crown.
[14] After an outburst in court in Liverpool, where he claimed the right to hold and express his political opinions,[14] a motion was tabled in the House of Commons on the Great Yarmouth petition, which sought to begin the a formal process of examining "complaints that have been made of the partisan and political character of the conduct during the trial of that petition of Mr. Justice Grantham.
"[15] The motion, which had been signed by 347 MPs,[16] was moved by South Donegal MP J. G. Swift MacNeill, who attacked Grantham to repeated cheers in the House.
[16] In a lengthy debate, the Attorney-General Sir John Walton described Grantham's conduct as "most unfortunate", but warned the House that proceeding to ask the Crown to remove a judge was an extreme step, and one he advised against.
The tunnel's advocates included the Duke of Argyll, Lord Glantawe, Joynson-Hicks, Will Crooks, Hamar Greenwood, Sir William Bull and Arthur Conan Doyle.
[24] At a public meeting in London in February 1914 they made the case that the tunnel would increase commerce in peacetime and improve communications in wartime.
[24] During World War I, Fell and the committee continued to press the case for a tunnel, leading a delegation of MPs to the Prime Minister H. H. Asquith in October 1916.
Asquith said that the experience of the war had shown that a tunnel could have had an important role in supplying the British Expeditionary Force, and that a full review was now needed.
[29] when Lloyd George told them that the government no longer had a political objection to a tunnel, but that its final position awaited a report on the military issues from the General Staff[29] who in 1916 had been too busy with the war to consider the project.
[2] Lauriston House, a former residence of William Wilberforce, was filled with paintings by Fell, as well as containing a mural by the Swiss neo-classical artist Angelica Kauffmann.
