General election trail

1895 general election

Mug commemorating the 1895 general election victory of the Conservative Party's Windham Wyndham-Quin, MP in South Glamorgan

The general election of 1895 was the first to be contested by the Independent Labour Party (ILP), led by Keir Hardie, one of the forerunners of the modern Labour Party.  The ILP failed to win any seats.  The election was won by the Conservative Party with 411 seats out of 670.

Did you know?  The 1895 election was held over several days between 13 July and 7 August.  It was not until 1918 that general elections had to be held on a single day (with the exception of Orkney and Shetland which did not move to single day elections until 1929).