1903 Lewisham by-election

By-election in the UK

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15 December 1903

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Candidate	Coates	Cleland
Party	Conservative	Liberal
Popular vote	7,709	5,697
Percentage	57.5%	42.5%

MP before election

John Penn
Conservative

Subsequent MP

Edward Coates
Conservative

The 1903 Lewisham by-election was a by-election held on 15 December 1903 for the British House of Commons constituency of Lewisham.

The by-election was triggered by the death of the serving Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP), John Penn.

The Unionist candidate was Major Edward Coates. The Liberal Party candidate was James William Cleland.

As with the Dulwich by-election held on the same day, the main issue was tariff reform and Joseph Chamberlain's proposals for Imperial Preference. A factor which made the result of the by election difficult to predict was that the seat had not been contested since 1892 and in that time the population had doubled in size. The additional residents, according to the Times, were mainly "City men, with comparatively small incomes".^[1]

In the event, the result was a comfortable win for the Unionist candidate.

Result

Lewisham by-election, 1903^[2]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%
	Conservative	Edward Coates	7,709	57.5
	Liberal	James William Cleland	5,697	42.5
Majority			2,012	15.0
Turnout			13,406
	Conservative hold		Swing

References

^ The Times 3 December 1903
^ "Flowing Tide for Unionism - Lewisham". Sheffield Telegraph. 18 January 1910. Retrieved 5 January 2016 – via British Newspaper Archive.