BFI

This short Topical Budget item shows Stanley Baldwin electioneering in his constituency of Bewdley, Worcestershire with his wife Lucy. Bewdley was also his home town (he had been born there in 1867) and his father, Alfred Baldwin, was the local MP until 1908, Stanley having taken over after his death. (After his retirement in 1937, he would be created Earl Baldwin of Bewdley).

At the time these sequences were filmed, Baldwin was already Conservative Prime Minister, having been appointed in May 1923 following the retirement of Andrew Bonar Law after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. However, Baldwin had never contested a general election as Tory leader, and although he had a healthy majority, he was about to propose the introduction of protectionist tariffs as a means of countering rising unemployment.

He therefore felt morally obliged to call a general election for December 1923, the outcome of which was decidedly ambivalent. Although the Conservatives remained the largest party (with 258 seats to Labour's 191 and the Liberals' 159), their share of the vote fell sharply. Baldwin remained Prime Minister until January 1924, when he was defeated in a Commons confidence vote and replaced by Labour's Ramsay MacDonald.

Michael Brooke

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