Warwick Brookes
Before World War I he had an iron foundry in Essex, and was also involved in Eugen Sandow's Institute of Physical Culture, an early gymnasium for body builders.
[10] At this point he was in grave financial difficulties, but began working to develop the British interests of a group of American investors who promised him substantial reward.
[13] He campaigned for the Conservative candidate at the by-election in Chelmsford in November that year[14] but at the general election in January 1910 he lost in Newington West to the sitting Liberal Party MP Captain Cecil Norton, by a margin of 412 votes (5.0%)[15] At the December 1910 election, Norton, by now Assistant Postmaster-General,[16] saw off Brookes again, this time with a majority of 540 votes (7.2%).
Norton had already indicated his intention to stand down from the Commons at the next general election, and the City of London merchant J. D. Gilbert had already been selected as the Liberal prospective parliamentary candidate.
[18] In ordinary circumstances this would have led to a by-election contested both by Gilbert and by Brookes, who had been adopted as the prospective Conservative candidate, but the war had brought a different logic.
The parties in the coalition government led by H. H. Asquith had agreed an electoral pact for the duration of the war: when a vacancy arose in a seat held by the Conservatives, the Liberals would not contest the resulting by-election, and vice versa.
On 9 January, two days after the close of nominations in Newington West, a vacancy arose in the East London, in the Mile End division of Tower Hamlets.
[22] The writ for the by-election was issued on 17 January, and with the campaign well underway The Times newspaper commented the next day that it would be "unwise to speculate on the result".
[25] Nominations closed on 21 January,[26] and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Arthur Balfour, intervened to denounce the "criminality" of an implication by Billings that the air defence of the East End had been neglected because the people there were poor.
[28] At the post-war general election in December 1918 Brookes did not stand again in Mile End, which was held with a huge majority by the Coalition Conservative candidate Walter Preston.
[34] By 1920 he was sailing Susanne, a 154-Thames Ton schooner built in 1904 to the designs of William Fife,[35] and competing against the King's yacht Britannia at Deal[36] and in Cowes Week.
