1924 United Kingdom general election in Scotland

A general election was held in the United Kingdom on Wednesday 29 October 1924, as a result of the defeat of the Labour minority government, led by Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald, in the House of Commons on a motion of no confidence.^[1] It was the third general election to be held in less than two years. Parliament was dissolved on 9 October.^[2] Scotland was allocated 74 seats in total, with 71 territorial seats (32 burgh constituencies and 38 county constituencies)^[c] which voted using the first past the post voting method, and one university constituency, which elected an additional 3 members using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) method.^[3] As voters in university constituencies voted under a different system, and in addition to their territorial vote, the results are compiled separately. All 74 seats were contested.

1924 United Kingdom general election

← 1923 29 October 1924 1929 →
← outgoing members elected members →
All 74 Scottish seats to the House of Commons
First party Second party Third party   Leader Stanley Baldwin Ramsay MacDonald H. H. Asquith Party Unionist Labour Liberal Last election 16[a] 34[a] 23[a] Seats won 38[a] 26[a] 9[a] Seat change 22[a] 8 14[a] Popular vote 688,299[b] 697,146[b] 286,540[b] Percentage 40.7%[b] 41.1%[b] 16.6%[b] Swing 9.1%[b] 5.2%[b] 11.8%[b]
Results of the 1924 election in Scotland for the county and burgh seats   Unionist   Labour   Liberal   Scottish Prohibition Party

Main article: 1924 United Kingdom general election

In Scotland the election saw both the Labour Party and the Unionists gain votes at the expense of the Liberals. Labour were slightly (0.4%) ahead of the Unionists in terms of votes cast, however the Unionists managed to secure 12 more Scottish seats than Labour, winning 38 seats in total. The Scottish Liberals saw an 11.8% swing against them and lost more than half their seats to finish third. The only other party represented in parliament from Scotland was the Scottish Prohibition Party, who retained their only seat in Dundee.

When combined with results from across the UK, the Conservatives (with whom the Unionists aligned at Westminster) led by Stanley Baldwin obtained a large parliamentary majority of 209. Labour lost 40 seats. The Liberal Party, led by Asquith, lost 118 of their 158 seats which helped to polarise British politics between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party.

Results

Seats summary

Party		Seats	Last Election	Seats change
	Unionist	38	16	22
	Labour	26	34	8
	Liberal	9	23	14
	Scottish Prohibition Party	1	1
Total		74	74

Burgh & County constituencies

Party		Seats	Seats change	Votes	%	% Change
	Unionist	36	22	688,299	40.7%	9.1%
	Labour	26	8	697,146	41.1%	5.2%
	Liberal	8	14	286,540	16.6%	11.8%
	Communist	0	-	15,930	0.7%	1.7%
	Other	1	-	29,193	0.9%	0.8%
Total		71		1,717,108	100

University constituency

The Combined Scottish Universities elected an additional 3 members to the house using the STV voting method. The constituency had not been contested at the previous election in 1923.

General election 1924: Combined Scottish Universities ^[4]

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Henry Craik	7,188	40.8	N/A
	Liberal	Dugald Cowan	5,011	28.4	N/A
	Unionist	George Andreas Berry	3,781	21.5	N/A
	Labour	John Martin Munro	1,639	9.3	New
Majority			2,142	12.2	N/A
Turnout			17,619
	Unionist hold		Swing
	Liberal hold		Swing
	Unionist hold		Swing

Votes summary

Popular vote[b] Labour   41.1% Unionist   40.7% Liberal   16.6% Other   1.6%

Parliamentary seats[a] Unionist   38 seats Labour   26 seats Liberal   9 seats Scottish Prohibition Party   1 seats

Notes

1. Combined results for burgh, county and university seats
2. Total and percentage votes given here are for territorial constituencies only
3. One burgh seat, Dundee, was represented by two members of parliament.