East Fife by-election, 1961

The East Fife by-election, 1961 was a by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of East Fife in Scotland on 9 November 1961. It was won by the Unionist candidate Sir John Gilmour.

Vacancy

The seat had become vacant when the sitting National Liberal Member of Parliament (MP), Sir James Henderson-Stewart had died at the age of 63 on 3 September 1961. He had held the seat since a by-election in 1933. The result at the previous election was as follows;

General Election 1959: East Fife

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	National Liberal	Sir James Henderson-Stewart	26,585	69.95	−0.65
	Labour	J. Nicol	11,421	30.05	+0.65
Majority			15,164	39.90	−1.30
Turnout			38,006	75.20	+2.01
	National Liberal hold		Swing	−0.65

Candidates

The Unionist candidate was 49-year-old Sir John Gilmour, an Eton and Cambridge-educated baronet who was a local farmer and land-owner, and a decorated war-hero. His father, also called John, had been an MP for thirty years, serving as a minister in the 1920s and 1930s including a period as Home Secretary. Gilmour was a reluctant by-election candidate; he had stood unsuccessfully at the 1945 general election in Clackmannan and Eastern Stirlingshire, but preferred local politics and had been a member of Fife County Council since 1955. However, he was pressured to stand by the constituency association which feared the imposition of an unpopular Conservative candidate.

The Labour Party candidate was John Smith, a 23-year-old law student at Glasgow University, who would later become leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Chancellor.

The Liberal Party candidate was 30-year-old Donald Leach. He contested Edinburgh West in 1959. He was the Head of Department of Mathematics at Napier College of Science and Technology. He was educated at John Ruskin Grammar School and Croydon Polytechnic.

Result

Gilmour was elected with a reduced but still large majority, with nearly 50% of the votes.

East Fife by-election, 1961

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Unionist	Sir John E. Gilmour	15,948	47.4	−22.2
	Labour	John Smith	8,882	26.4	−3.6
	Liberal	Donald Leach	8,786	26.2	N/A
Majority			7,066	21.02	−18.9
Turnout			33,616
	Unionist hold		Swing	−9.3

Gilmour was re-elected at the 1964 general election, with an increased majority over Smith, and held the seat until he stepped down at the 1979 general election. Smith much later became leader of the Labour party.

See also

• East Fife (UK Parliament constituency)
• Fife
• East Fife by-election, 1933
• List of United Kingdom by-elections (1950–1979)

References

• British Parliamentary by-elections: East Fife 1961
• 1959 general election results at Richard Kimber's political science resources
• 1955 general election results at Richard Kimber's political science resources
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs