Bolton Election Result

Women's Suffrage campaigners make their mark in a key by-election

Was the Pathé newsreel unusually sympathetic to the women's suffrage campaign? It's certainly intriguing that it chose to highlight suffragettes' contribution to the Liberal Party's success in this 1912 by-election - something most newspapers overlooked. Polling day was on 23rd of November, and Liberal candidate Thomas Taylor took the seat on a 90 percent turnout, much to the annoyance of the Conservatives.

Contemporary reports attributed Taylor's victory to a progressive alliance of liberals and workers (and suffragettes). It was certainly a welcome boost to Herbert Asquith's Liberal government. Taylor would be the second of Bolton's two MPs at this time, the other being Labour's Alfred Henry Gill.