Richard Reiss

Reiss first stood for parliament at the age of 27, as Liberal candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Chichester at both the January and December 1910 general elections.

He worked with Roden Buxton at the National Land and Home League, and was appointed Chair of the Housing sub-committee in 1911.

He organised an enquiry into conditions in over 2,000 villages in England and Wales and drafted most of the rural report which was published under the title 'The Land' (Vol.

By 1914 the association did not want Martin to continue as their MP and in May selected Reiss to be their candidate for the general election expected to be called late 1914/early 1915.

[9] In July Martin announced that he would instead resign his seat and return to his native Canada, allowing Reiss to run against a Unionist in the by-election.

In August war was declared, the general election was deferred, Reiss resigned as candidate to enlisted and Martin continued as MP.

He was immediately seconded by Lloyd George to the Ministry of Reconstruction to work under Christopher Addison on tackling housing problems once the war was over.

Reiss assumed that he would be endorsed by the Coalition Government, since Lloyd George had publicly supported him when he was selected back in the spring.