page_title: Evan Cotton
section_title: Politics
hierarchical_section_title: Evan Cotton / Politics
caption_attribution_description: English: A map of Finsbury East constituency within the Metropolitan Board of Works area, as it existed from 1885 to 1918.
context_page_description: Sir Harry Evan Auguste Cotton CIE, better known as Evan Cotton or H. E. A. Cotton, was a Liberal politician, barrister, administrator, journalist, historian and writer. His Calcutta Old and New, first published in 1907, remains unsurpassed to this day.
context_section_description: Evan returned to England in 1906 and joined the Liberal Party. His father was himself a Liberal MP who sat for Nottingham East from 1906–1910. In January 1910, Evan contested the General Election at the Conservative seat of Dulwich;
  In March 1910 he was elected as a Progressive Councillor to the London County Council representing Finsbury East;
  The Progressives were the local government arm of the Liberal Party. In March 1913 he was re-elected to the LCC;
  In July 1918, when a vacancy occurred due to the death of a Liberal MP, for the parliamentary seat of Finsbury East. Cotton was an obvious candidate to defend the seat for the Liberal Party. Due to the wartime electoral truce, he did not face an official Unionist Party opponent and was comfortably elected;
  Following boundary changes, Evan's Finsbury East seat was merged with the Unionist seat of Finsbury Central to form a new Finsbury constituency. The Coalition Government chose to publicly endorse the Unionist candidate who was the sitting MP for the old Central seat. This endorsement made Evan's prospects difficult and after only 5 months as an MP he was defeated;
  In 1919 he did not defend his Finsbury East seat on the London County Council as after the election he was appointed as an Alderman.
caption: Finsbury East in the London area, showing boundaries used 1885–1918
exif: {}