1961 Bristol South East by-election

UK Parliamentary by-election

The 1961 Bristol South East by-election was a by-election held on 4 May 1961 for the British House of Commons constituency of Bristol South East in the city of Bristol.

The seat had become vacant when the constituency's Labour Member of Parliament (MP), Tony Benn, had inherited a hereditary peerage from his father and became Viscount Stansgate, thus making him automatically ineligible to serve in the House of Commons. He had been elected at a by-election in 1950.

Benn stood in the by-election anyway—claiming that he had not asked for and would not ask for a writ of summons to the House of Lords—and won the majority of votes, but he was forbidden by Parliamentary authorities to physically return to the Commons due to his ineligibility. The Conservative Party candidate Malcolm St Clair—who was himself the heir to a peerage—filed a petition against the result, and was declared the winner after a court challenge.

When the law was later changed by the Peerage Act 1963 to allow Benn to renounce his peerage, Benn immediately did so and, fulfilling a promise to the electors of Bristol South East, St Clair resigned his seat. Benn was returned to the House of Commons at the 1963 Bristol South East by-election, which was not contested by the Conservatives.

Result

Bristol South East by-election, 1961
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Viscount Stansgate (Tony Benn) (disqualified)	23,275	69.5	+13.3
	Conservative	Malcolm St Clair	10,231	30.5	−13.3
Majority			−13,044	−39.0	N/A
Turnout			33,506	56.7	−24.7
	Conservative gain from Labour		Swing	−13.3

References

"1961 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 15 August 2015.

British Parliamentary by-elections, 1961: Bristol South East

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1960	March: Brighouse and Spenborough Harrow West May: Edinburgh North November: Mid Bedfordshire Bolton East Carshalton Ludlow Petersfield Tiverton Ebbw Vale Blyth
1961	March: Cambridgeshire Colchester High Peak Worcester Birmingham Small Heath April: Paisley Warrington May: Bristol South East November: Manchester Moss Side East Fife Oswestry Glasgow Bridgeton
1962	March: Lincoln Blackpool North Middlesbrough East Orpington Pontefract April: Stockton-on-Tees Derby North May: Montgomeryshire June: Middlesbrough West West Derbyshire July: West Lothian Leicester North East November: Chippenham South Dorset Glasgow Woodside Central Norfolk South Northamptonshire
1963	March: Colne Valley Rotherham Swansea East June: Leeds South July: Deptford West Bromwich August: Stratford Bristol South East Belfast South November: Kinross and Western Perthshire Luton Dundee West December: Manchester Openshaw St Marylebone Sudbury and Woodbridge Dumfriesshire
1964	May: Bury St Edmunds Devizes Rutherglen Winchester June: Faversham Liverpool Scotland
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