page_title: 1910 Walthamstow by-election
section_title: Vacancy
hierarchical_section_title: 1910 Walthamstow by-election / Vacancy
caption_attribution_description: Men of the Day No.1301: Caricature of Sir JA Simon Kt KC. Caption reads: "Simple Simon"
context_page_description: The Walthamstow by-election, 1910 was a parliamentary by-election held in England on 1 November 1910 for the House of Commons constituency of Walthamstow. It was then a division of Essex, but the area is now part of Greater London.
  This was a ministerial by-election. The laws of the time required that an MP who had joined the government had to seek re-election, and the early stages of the campaign saw controversy about whether the election should be contested. However, the main issue in the election was the Osborne judgment, in which the courts had banned trade unions from imposing a political levy on their members. After a prolonged campaign, the outgoing Liberal MP John Simon was re-elected.
context_section_description: The Liberal Party politician John Simon KC had been Walthamstow's Member of Parliament (MP) since 1906. He was appointed on 6 October 1910 as Solicitor General for England and Wales.
  Provisions of the Regency Act 1707, which remained in force until amended in 1919 and repealed in 1926, provided that MPs appointed as ministers automatically vacated their seats in Parliament. They were then allowed to stand for re-election, in what were known as ministerial by-elections,
  which were not usually contested by the other major parties.
  The Times newspaper noted that the relevant Act had been passed in the reign of Queen Anne "to prevent the Court from swamping the House of Commons with placemen and pensioners", and described the process as "anomalous" and "indefensible" in the 20th century.
caption: Sir John Simon KC, as caricatured in Vanity Fair on 18 October 1911 with the caption "Simple Simon".
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