Changing faces of democracy in the town
THE Ormskirk Division was created in 1885 after the Redistribution of Seats Act, replacing the South West Division which from 1867 had been sending two MPs to Parliament.
From 1885, the South West Division was split into eight smaller divisions, Ormskirk being one of them.
The first elected representative from the new Ormskirk Division was Liverpool born shipping merchant, Arthur Bower Forwood, later first Baron Forwood.
He had served as Lord Mayor of Liverpool from 1878-79 and was the Chairman of the Liverpool Conservative Association, and as the Conservative MP for Ormskirk he served for 13 years up to his death in 1898.
At his re-election in 1893, his opponent was local Urban Councillor Thomas Stoner who was a wellknown shop owner in Ormskirk – but as a Liberal Candidate he was soundly beaten by the Conservative vote.
As well as working as a representative for the Ormskirk people, Forwood is also credited with the regeneration and restocking of the Royal Navy after being appointed to the Admiralty soon after becoming an MP.
The unexpected death of Sir Arthur Forwood forced a by-election in October 1898 and the Conservative candidate Sir Arthur Stanley – son of the 16th Earl of Derby – was returned unopposed.
He had been in Canada for several years where his father, before becoming the 16th Earl, had been the Governor General.
Sir Arthur was returned unopposed for Ormskirk in the 1900 election and successfully defended his seat in 1906 against Liberal candidate and Liverpool barrister Climenson Yelverton Charles Dawbarn with a 23% majority.
In the January 1910 General Election, Sir Arthur again successfully defended the seat against Liberal candidate William Lever (later Lord Leverhulme) who reduced Sir Arthur’s majority to 19%.
The Liberals called a second General Election in December 1910 due to the deadlock and Sir Arthur was again returned unopposed for Ormskirk.
It wasn’t until the 1918 election that the first non-conservative MP was elected, Labour Party candidate and trade unionist James Bell from Oldham, a weaver by trade, who had been an opponent of the half-time labour laws for children a few years earlier and had a background in the textile trade of East Lancashire, not an agricultural area like West Lancashire.
The divided votes for the Conservative candidate Thomas Fermor-Hesketh and the National Farmers Union Candidate Stephen Hirst, put Labour at the top.
In 1922 however, James Bell lost heavily to the Unionist candidate Francis Blundell of Crosby Hall who, as a Roman Catholic Conservative landowner, was supported strongly in the agricultural division.
Blundell had served in World War I in the Lancashire Yeomanry and a fellow officer had been the third Lord Lathom, whose Lathom Estate had been loaned to the War Office as a remount depot during the war.
Blundell held Ormskirk in the following two General Elections of 1923 and 1924, losing in 1929 to Labour’s local man, Thomas Samuel Rosbotham.
Blundell went on to be recognised as an expert on agriculture and had works published on various aspects of the subject and he was also to become the first Mayor of Crosby.
Sir Samuel Thomas Rosbotham of Stanley Farm, Four Lane Ends, Bickerstaffe was very well known in the area, a local farmer with his traction engine and threshing machine business being very successful. He had many family and business ties to the area, including being a Church Warden at Holy Trinity, Bickerstaffe.
He retained the seat in 1931 and 1935 for National Labour and was succeeded in 1939 by Stephen King-Hall.
Commander Stephen King-Hall was the National Labour MP for Ormskirk from 1939 – when he was returned unopposed – and in 1945 he was defeated by Labour candidate Harold Wilson.
King-Hall wrote, amongst others, an early Carry On film, Carry On Admiral in 1957.
He served in WWI on HMS Southampton and became a Royal Naval Commander in 1928.