The first man the Conservative Party wished to consider was George Sheard, a Batley JP and one of the town's successful "shoddy barons" who headed his own cloth manufacturing firm. Mr Sheard had apparently been approached to stand as a Conservative candidate a number of times but had always declined. If he turned them down again (as indeed he chose to do on the grounds of advancing age) they were likely to turn to either, Joe Haley, a three time Mayor of Dewsbury, Alderman Edmund Kilburn, JP who had also been Mayor of Dewsbury on two occasions, or, although not a local man, to Forbes St John Morrow, a barrister, the candidate opposing Oldroyd at the 1900 general election, and later to serve as Municipal Reform member on the London County Council between 1907–1922. Later, a new name was also put forward, that of Frank Whiteley. Whiteley had been mayor of Mafeking in South Africa during the famous Boer War siege.