1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election

The 1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in Scotland on 3 May 1900 for the UK House of Commons constituency of Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities.^[1]

1900 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election

← 1896 3 May 1900 1900 →

Candidate Sir John Batty Tuke Party Conservative

MP before election Priestley Conservative Subsequent MP Tuke Conservative

As a university constituency, the constituency had no geographical basis. Instead, its electorate consisted of the graduates of Edinburgh University and St Andrews University.

Vacancy

The by-election was held to fill the vacancy caused by the death on 11 April 1900 of 70-year-old Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Sir William Overend Priestley.^[2] An eminent obstetrician, Priestley had held the seat since a by-election in May 1896.^[3]

Candidates

The Conservative Party selected as its candidate the 65-year-old Sir John Batty Tuke. He was a Yorkshire-born, Edinburgh-educated, pioneering psychiatrist based at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, who had been knighted in 1898.^[4]

Nomination day was set as Thursday 3 May,^[5] but the seat had last been contested at the 1885 general election.^[3] The Conservatives did not expect a contest in the by-election,^[4] and speculation that the novelist J. M. Barrie would stand as a Liberal Party candidate ended on 30 April when Barrie sent a telegram declining nomination.^[6]

Result

The nomination process was held in the Senate Hall of the University of Edinburgh on 3 May 1900, where the Principal Sir William Muir presided over a gathering of only about 20 people. Tuke was nominated by Professor Thomas Annandale of Edinburgh, and seconded by Professor Scott Lang of the University of St Andrews.^[7]

No other candidate was nominated, so Tuke was declared elected.^[7][3]

Aftermath

Tuke was re-elected unopposed at the general election in September/October 1900. At the 1906 general election, he was re-elected in a two-way contest with John Strachey (journalist), a Free Trader.^[3] He stood down at the January 1910 general election.^[3]

See also

• List of United Kingdom by-elections
• Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities constituency
• 1873 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
• 1888 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
• 1890 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
• 1896 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
• 1916 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election
• 1917 Edinburgh and St Andrews Universities by-election