page_title: 1904 St Albans by-election
section_title: Vacancy
hierarchical_section_title: 1904 St Albans by-election / Vacancy
caption_attribution_description: English: HMS Triumph (1903) as completed January 1904
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: The vacancy was caused by the disqualification from the Commons of the sitting Conservative MP Vicary Gibbs, who had held the seat since 1892.
  He had been returned unopposed in 1895 and 1900, but was disqualified in February 1904.
  He and his brother Alban (an MP for the City of London) were partners in the firm Antony Gibbs & Sons, which had organised the sale to the Admiralty of two pre-dreadnought battleships built in England for the Chilean Navy, in order to avoid them being sold to a rival power when Chile did not complete the purchase.
  He told his constituents that if the ships had passed into the hands of a rival nation, such as Russia (which had made a cash offer for them), the balance of power would have been significantly altered, and that Britain would have fallen behind in naval power relative to their rivals.  The two warships, Triumph and Swiftsure, were purchased by the Royal Navy on 12 March 1903, and served through the First World War.
  However, by managing the sale to the Admiralty the brothers disqualified themselves from the House of Commons, under provisions of the House of Commons (Disqualification) Act 1782 (22 Geo. III, c. 45) which debarred MPs from accepting contracts from the Crown. Vicary Gibbs told his constituents on 18 January that he would resign from the Commons by taking the Chiltern Hundreds, and then present himself for re-election.
  However, since the Gibbs brothers were already disqualified, he did not need to take the usual step of disqualifying himself by taking the Chiltern Hundreds, and in letters of 1 February 1904 he and his brother both informed the Speaker of the contract.  Vicary Gibbs noted that "I am advised that by so doing I have, under an Act of George III, vacated my seat in Parliament".
  His letter was read to the Commons on 2 February, and the writ was moved the following day.
  The polling date was set as 12 February.
caption: HMS Triumph in January 1904
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