Electoral history of R. B. Bennett

This article is the electoral history of R. B. Bennett, the eleventh Prime Minister of Canada.

He won one general election (1930), defeating Prime Minister Mackenzie King.

After retiring from Canadian politics, Bennett moved to England, where he was appointed to the House of Lords in the British Parliament.

Bennett ranks eleventh out of twenty-three prime ministers for time in office, serving one term of five years and 77 days.

When Meighen resigned after losing the 1926 general election to Mackenzie King, Bennett won the first leadership convention ever held by the Conservative Party, in 1927.

In the 1930 election, called at the beginning of the Great Depression, Bennett led the Conservatives to victory, ousting King and the Liberals.

Bennett resigned the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1938 and retired from politics.

Bennett also lost the election for his own seat and thus not a member of the Legislative Assembly.

in 1941 he was granted a peerage, as "Viscount Bennett of Mickleham in the County of Surrey and of Calgary and Hopewell in the Dominion of Canada",[4] which entitled him to sit in the House of Lords.

Bennett led the Conservative Party in two general elections, winning once (1930) and losing once (1935).

Bennett won a solid majority government after the 1930 election, defeating Mackenzie King and the Liberals.

In the 1935 election, King and the Liberals decisively defeated Bennett and the Conservatives.

Bennett stayed on as leader of the Conservative Party until his successor, Robert Manion, was elected in 1938.

Bennett stood for election to the House of Commons eight times, once in the North-West Territories and subsequently in the province of Alberta.

At this time, newly appointed Cabinet ministers had to stand for re-election, but it was customary for the other political party not to oppose the election.

Bennett resigned his seat in the territorial assembly to stand in the 1900 federal election, unsuccessfully.

Bennett began his political career in 1896 at the age of 26, when he was persuaded by a young Max Aitken, the future Lord Beaverbrook, to stand for election as an alderman.

[2] Bennett was elected leader of the Conservative Party on the second ballot at the leadership convention of 1927.

In 1941, the King appointed him to the peerage, with the dignity of "Viscount Bennett of Mickleham in the County of Surrey and of Calgary and Hopewell in the Dominion of Canada.