John Duckworth (politician)

According to The Times Newspaper, Duckworth was not associated with the internal feuding which had plagued the Liberals since the split between H H Asquith and David Lloyd George in December 1916 and this helped unify the two wings of the party there in the run up to the 1923 general election.

The Blackburn constituency was a two-member seat and the Liberals and Unionists remained in partnership there after 1918 against the socialist threat, maintaining the former wartime coalition arrangements.

In January 1924 he was one of then Liberal MPs to defy his party line and vote with the Conservatives in an attempt to prevent the formation of the first Labour government under Ramsay MacDonald.

He also voted with the Conservatives later that year in the division over the decision of the Poplar Board of Guardians to exceed the amount of relief they were entitled to dispense to the deserving poor and also on the government's naval estimates.

[4] While in Parliament, Duckworth took an interest in agricultural affairs, with a particular reference to sugar-beet production[5] and in foreign policy he was especially concerned with Anglo-Chinese relations[6] He was managing director of Mssrs.