page_title: 1904 St Albans by-election
section_title: Result
hierarchical_section_title: 1904 St Albans by-election / Result
caption_attribution_description: English: The Old Town Hall and Market Place, viewed from St Peter's Street in St Albans.
context_page_description: The St Albans by-election of 1904 was a parliamentary by-election held in England in February 1904 for the House of Commons. It elected a new Member of Parliament for the constituency of St Albans, a county division of Hertfordshire.
  It was the first contested parliamentary election in St Albans since 1892. The two-way contest was dominated by the contemporary debate between free trade and tariff reform, and fought with the assistance of the major national organisations on both sides of that divide. It also reflected the wider national divide between high church Conservatism and nonconformist Liberalism. After a campaign marred by several incidents of unrest, the Liberal Party candidate narrowly won the seat from the Conservatives, who had held the seat since its creation in 1885.
context_section_description: Polling took place on Friday 12 February.  The weather was fine in the morning, but the afternoon brought heavy rain and gales. Roads were flooded in many places, and many of the motor cars which had been engaged to bring voters to polling stations were unable to make the journey.
  The downpour was thought by both sides to have considerably weakened the Liberal chances of success, because although a high turnout was expected, the rain made it impossible for many working class voters to travel to the poll.
  The result was announced from the balcony of the town hall in St Albans on Saturday 13th, by the High Sheriff.
  Despite the bad weather, Slack had won a narrow victory,
  with a majority of 132 votes (1.4% of the total). Out of the division's 11,518 registered electors, 9,423 (81.5%) had cast valid votes, with a further 41 spoilt ballots.
  The announcement was greeted by cheering from the crowd, and speeches from the candidates, in which they thanked their supporters and the Sheriff.  Gibbs said that although he had worked as hard as he could, his health had been poor. Slack also thanked his opponents for their courtesy during the campaign, and after a meeting at the St Albans Liberal Club he went to  Clarence Park recreation ground to kick off for the St Albans Football Club at a match.
caption: The town hall in St Albans, where the results were announced
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P10", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2003:10:19 16:59:00", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-P10", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2003:10:19 16:59:00", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2385", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3731", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:10:19 16:59:00", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:10:19 16:59:00", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "68/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1944", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2178", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}