Courtenay Mansel

Sir Courtenay Cecil Mansel, 13th Baronet (25 February 1880 – 4 January 1933) was a Welsh landowner and farmer, barrister and Liberal Party politician who later joined the Conservatives.

In 1908, the sitting Liberal MP for Swansea, George Newnes, announced his intention to stand down at the next election and Mansel was publicly mentioned as a possible successor.

His aristocratic and landowning background told against him however in a strongly non-conformist constituency, which at that time included the industrial town of Llanelli.

Rather to his chagrin, having attended on Prime Minister David Lloyd George at a special meeting at Number 10 Downing Street[8] Mansel was not awarded the Coalition coupon.

The Labour Party also decided to stand a candidate in the 1924 general election in Penryn and Falmouth thus splitting the anti-Tory vote.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a member of the British aristocracy, a landowner who had been to one of the top public schools in England, Mansel's views were not those associated with the radical tradition in the Liberal Party.

[14] A colleague of Mansel's in South West England, Maxwell Ruthven Thornton the former Liberal MP for Tavistock in Devon also resigned from the party over the Green Book[15] believing its contents were tantamount to socialism.

[16] In the interests of unity, the Liberal Party took steps to modify the Green Book proposals after the initial furore but Mond had decided to go.

Carmarthen Liberals were therefore looking to adopt a new candidate and they turned to Mansel whose family home, Maesycrugiau Manor, was in the county.

Mansel had retained strong links with Carmarthenshire Liberalism and was also a prominent member of the local branch of the National Farmers' Union.

[1] Mansel turned them down on the grounds that he was committed to his Penryn and Falmouth seat but he also expressed severe doubts about the Green Book policies, even as amended, saying they were incompatible with the tenets of Liberalism and echoing Mond's description of the report's approach as socialist.

[19] In a tight contest the Liberal candidate William Nathaniel Jones won by the narrow majority of 47 votes over Labour's Daniel Hopkin.