The Returning Officer: Rusholme

By Stephen Brasher

The shipowner Robert Stoker won Manchester Rusholme in the 1918 election but died less than a year later. John Henry Thorpe, the father of the future Liberal leader Jeremy, held the constituency for the Tories at the resulting by-election.

Roger Bevan Crewdson came last, standing for the National Party – a right-wing split from the Tories that dissolved in 1921. The next year, Crewdson stood as a Unionist in North Norfolk, having his pamphlet When Britons Will Be Slaves: the Peril of Nationalisation published by local printers. He later became editor of the journal National Opinion. A captain in the Royal Artillery in the First World War, he died in an air raid in 1941.

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This article appears in the 23 Sep 2015 issue of the New Statesman, Revenge of the Left