Leeds Parliamentary Election Results
1892 - 7th July
Central
G. W. Balfour (Conservative) 4,448
J. L. Walton (Gladstonian Liberal) 4,335
East
J. L. Gane (Gladstonian Liberal) 4,024 *
A. H. A. Morton (Conservative) 3,197
[ * Died 1895. ]
North
W. L. Jackson (Conservative) 5,790
T. R. Leuty ( Gladstonian Liberal) 4,776
South
Sir L. Playfair (Gladstonian Liberal) 4,829 *
R. J. Neville (Conservative) 3,294
[ * Raised to the peerage August 1892. ]
West
H. J. Gladstone (Gladstonian Liberal) 5,974
A. Greenwood (Conservative) 5,621
The Gladstonian Liberals with 272 seats eventually formed a minority government with the support of the Irish Nationalists’ 81. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists registered 314. Polling day was bright and sunny in Leeds encouraging voters to participate.
Once again Home Rule for Ireland dominated affairs. It was summed up by one opponent in a letter to the Yorkshire Evening Post, ‘It is a question of entrusting to the leaders of the Irish people the control of a great part of the empire’.
There was no change of seats in the town with 23,938 Liberals voting as opposed to 22,350 Conservatives. However, the Conservatives fared better in Leeds Central where Balfour increased his 13 majority by exactly 100, and in Leeds West where Arthur Greenwood of Greenwood & Batley’s fame, made massive inroads into Herbert Gladstone’s majority, reducing it from 2,256 to just 353. The Yorkshire Post claimed he was popular as a result of his ‘straight forward speeches that weighed against the frothy utterances’ of Gladstone. The number of people entitled to vote at the various polling stations varied considerably. Whereas the largest number at Bewerley Street was 3,472, the smallest number was at Pudsey Town End with just 147.