report journalism, similar to the more In many and were similarly based on reac- that was done in local organisation, recent ‘Mondeo Man’ and ‘Worces- tions against unpopular govern- the personal appeal of Eric Lubbock ter Woman’. Whereas parties now ways, Orp- ments and a divided Labour Party. and his strong roots in the local have recourse to sophisticated He concluded in agreement with community, and the historic weak- analytic tools which enable them to ington could the ‘ambiguous conclusion’ of Mark ness of the party in Kent – against identify particular subsets of voters Egan, reminding the audience which the later decline of Liberal on a range of characteristics, back be seen as that, although the core vote of the support could be seen as a reversion in 1962 the categorisation was more Conservative and Labour parties to type. straightforwardly geographic. Yet, the proto- declines at every election, the Lib- One audience member recalled the coming together of the new, eral Democrats are not well placed how he had been recruited to young, professional middle class and type of what to capitalise on this. Their voters lifelong Liberal membership by a the Home Counties suburbs did lay has become are less likely to ‘stick’ with them wine and cheese evening during the basis for later Liberal success. from election to election, their pol- the Orpington by-election. He Orpington was also, according the classic icy positions are not well known or emphasised the social aspect of the to Kavanagh, the forerunner of understood, they continue to suffer election, the personal support for two now-familiar electoral phe- pattern of from the electoral system, which Lubbock and the feeling of change nomena: by-elections as referenda penalises parties with an even geo- associated with the ‘Swinging ’60s’. on incumbent governments, and a Liberal graphical spread, and their growth There was a feeling of ‘sheer enthu- tactical voting. These have been the in support among young people is siasm’ which drove the Liberals ingredients of Liberal and Liberal by-election offset by the fact that this section of during this time. In particular, he Democrat resurgence over the past the electorate is least likely to vote. remembered travelling by motor- fifteen years. And they have very victory. He pointed to the 2010 general elec- cade up the M6 to Derbyshire, little to do with Jo Grimond. tion as evidence of this. where they were certain they were In many ways, Orpington could A lively discussion followed, going to win. be seen as the prototype of what with the many contributions from has become the classic pattern of a the audience stressing, among other Dr Emily Robinson is an Advance Liberal by-election victory. It was things, the importance of demon- Research Fellow at the School of Politics a forced election (i.e. not caused by strating successful administration and International Relations, University death), which gave the electorate in local government, the vital work of Nottingham. a reason to punish the incumbent party. Moreover, the Conservative government was itself unpopular. There was a third-party vote (in this case Labour), which could be squeezed. The Liberals had the momentum – following good show- In further search of ‘Orpington Man’ ings in Lincoln, Middlesborough The evidence re-examined and Blackpool, they were making headlines. Finally, a positive opin- By Michael Steed ion poll on the eve of the election allowed the Liberals to argue that the election should be seen as a ref- oth speakers at the History areas whose population had grown erendum on the government. All of Group meeting’s discussion most in the inter-war period. With these factors combined to provide Bof ‘Orpington Man’ referred just 12.3 per cent of the vote, Liberal an excellent opportunity for tactical to the wider pattern of Liberal support in the new Orpington itself voting. In addition, Lubbock was a voting in London and Manchester was unexceptional for the 1945 gen- personable candidate and the local suburban constituencies before and eral election; what was unusual was party was well organised. after the 1962 by-election in Orp- that this was quite a jump compared Like Egan, Kavanagh pointed ington itself. This note examines to the 9.3 per cent who had voted to the fact that, since the late 1950s, that wider pattern more precisely, Liberal in the previous general elec- the Liberals had been building and concludes that ‘Orpington tion (1935) in Chislehurst, the near- their strength in suburban seats in Man’ should be seen as an earlier est to a predecessor constituency. London and Manchester with no and more enduring component This was an exception which Liberal tradition. This was Betje- in the Liberal revival than has illustrated a rule. Although Lib- man’s ‘Metroland’, detatched from been generally recognised. The eral support declined generally any affiliation to the established phrase captures an important ele- between 1935 and 1945, the party’s political parties. Although the ment in the social changes which performance was extraordinarily party wasn’t yet winning seats in underpinned Liberal growth in uneven. For instance Orpington’s these areas, it was clearly breaking the Grimond era and were to make new neighbours also saw big jumps out of its Celtic fringe and finding a significant contribution to the in the Liberal vote: +8.4 in Bromley a new form of ‘Liberal Man’ in the party’s capacity to win seats by the and +3.9 in the reduced Chislehurst. suburbs. This was, Kavanagh felt, end of the twentieth century. Other newly drawn constituencies ‘the germ of the breakthrough that Orpington first appeared as a in the London suburbs also swung the party has made ever since.’ The constituency in 1945 due to a lim- dramatically to the Liberals. In surges in 1974, ’83 and ’87 were also ited localised redistribution. This 1935, the party had polled a mere particularly evident in the suburbs added 25 seats to the Commons in 7.5 per cent in the country’s largest

Journal of Liberal History 74 Spring 2012 41 in further search of ‘orpington man’ constituency, the Hendon division well as new suburban areas around years of bad by-election results. of Middlesex, with 164,786 electors; Birmingham and Manchester; but During this decade, the only good its 1945 votes were 16.9 per cent and most stretched out of London – by-election votes were in Inverness 18.5 per cent in the two new seats of poetically, John Betjeman’s Metro- (1954) and Rotherhithe (1946). No Hendon North and South. land. Most of these voters lived in sign of Orpington Man there, or in Historians have conspicuously recently built homes, developing either of the two general elections failed to note this localised resur- new communities. Typically there (1950 and 1951); the only seats gained gence of Liberalism, simply seeing was no local Liberal tradition. in three-cornered fights were in the 1945 election as part of a con- Such voters had generally spurned Scotland. In its continued decline, tinuous pattern of Liberal decline; Liberal candidates in 1935 but the parliamentary Liberal party a contemporary history called it responded better to the platform became the more associated with ‘the Waterloo of the Liberal party’.1 that the party promoted in 1945. the Celtic fringe. Its pockets of local Overall, the Liberal Party did do This surely reflected the social government support were mostly badly in 1945, both losing seats and Liberal appeal of 1945, the shift in Pennine towns, where another seeing its share of the vote drop in away from the party’s traditional type of Liberal tradition lingered most of the seats it had fought in themes to its new Beveridgian on, expressed at Westminster in 1935. But most of these were in tra- message. The twelve Liberal MPs the form of Liberal MPs elected ditionally Liberal areas: the Celtic elected in 1945 were all from Wales through local Tory-Liberal pacts. fringe, agricultural constituencies or agricultural areas (often both); That makes the pattern of where Labour had yet to overtake but popular Liberal support had change at the 1955 general elec- it and a scatter of urban strongholds shifted massively towards newer, tion all the more intriguing. David such as Birkenhead or Middles- urban Britain. That was most Butler noted this as the first elec- brough, often seaports where the evident in the new-growth areas, tion since 1929 when Liberal sup- party’s commitment to free trade but the party also gained ground port rose, if slightly; but stressed had still meant something in the dramatically in some urban con- the unevenness of the pattern.2 1930s. In 1945 such traditional sup- stituencies where it had polled very Generally, the slight rise failed to port was still ebbing fast; yet as that badly in 1935, such as Reading (up match the loss already sustained tide ebbed, new support in newly from 5 per cent to 12.6 per cent) or between 1950 and 1951. Whilst built up areas emerged out of the Edinburgh Central (4.6 per cent to a handful of striking improve- political seabed. If we take the thir- 11.2 per cent). The post-1945 party ments in peripheral Britain (North teen cases where rapid inter-war at Westminster was thoroughly Cornwall, North Devon, Hereford growth led to redistribution in 1945 unrepresentative of what was hap- and Inverness) did bring the party which had had a Liberal candidate Orpington pening amongst Liberal voters. above the 1950 level, in other tradi- standing in 1935 (most did not), the by-election, However, for the moment it was tional strongholds, from Anglesey average Liberal vote rose from 12.8 March 1962 – the a flash in the pan. A by-election in to Dorset, the party’s support was per cent to 16.2 per cent. result is declared; Bromley four months after the 1945 ebbing lower still. Such rapid-growth areas the victor, Eric general election saw the Liberal However, Butler failed to notice included some seaside towns, as Lubbock, centre vote cut in half, a foretaste of ten an area of consistent, significant

42 Journal of Liberal History 74 Spring 2012 in further search of ‘orpington man’ improvement which was to prove 1956–59 period suggests that the The long- and south-west England; some a harbinger of the future. Most social basis of the first Grimond by-elections gained by the fluke of constituencies with an improved revival lay more in the appeal of term par- vacancies, and then held by the hard by Liberal vote in 1955 had still Grimond’s new Liberalism to the work of the lucky victor; and most not recovered fully the losses of sort of people who lived in the liamentary recently some obviously university 1951. But among the two dozen newer suburbs. constituencies. But amongst the 57 exceptional constituencies where This was put to the test of the impact of are 86 lying in areas that qualified the 1955 Liberal vote exceeded the October 1959 general election. The for that special 1945 redistribution 1950 level, over half were in outer party only gained one, peripheral, ‘Orpington because of the huge growth in hous- suburban London or Manchester. constituency: North Devon. But it ing in the 1920s and 1930s. None of these had been areas of made striking advances in votes in Man’ was ‘Orpington Man’ deserves bet- traditional Liberal strength. Lead- the sort of areas where ‘Orpington only really ter too of political historians. Polit- ing this group of constituencies Man’ resided. The rise in its share ical change is not only measured were Twickenham (+2.4) and Orp- of the vote in Cheadle (+10.3) was apparent through the numbers of seats won ington (+1.9); there were also small only a shade less than that in North in the House of Commons. The increases in nearby Carshalton and Devon (+10.5), whilst Orpington after another unexpected response of women Richmond. itself with +8.8 was not far behind. and men in Orpington-type areas It is worth reflecting that this The average Liberal vote across generation. in 1945 and again in 1955 showed occurred before Jo Grimond made Britain rose only +1.8, but where that simple tales of Liberal decline the national impact he was about we can make 1955–59 comparisons From 1997 and of the party’s dependence on to. Clement Attlee was still leading in outer London the rise was +4.8 peripheral Britain were only part a Labour Party totally in hock to and in southern Greater Manches- onwards Lib- of the mid-twentieth century story. the trade-union block vote, whilst ter +6.8.4 The local elections of A new type of less class-bound and Sir Anthony Eden was brooding 1960 and 1961 confirmed further eral Demo- tradition-abiding voter had already over an imperialist nostalgia which growth in local Liberal strength in demonstrated by their behaviour was shortly to lead to the disaster of Orpington, so when the Conserva- crats have that some form of new politics was Suez. ‘Orpington Man’ was already tives precipitated the by-election, ready and waiting. From 1956 Jo stirring; or rather suburban men the seat was ready to fall like a ripe held several Grimond was able to harness that and women (so far as hard-working plum. something as the Liberal revival. party activists were concerned, Apart from Eric Lubbock’s per- of the sub- probably more often women), turn- sonal achievement in holding the Michael Steed, retired psephologist, lives ing instead to what most apparently seat until 1970, Orpington appar- urban con- in Canterbury, where he served as a Lib well-informed political pundits ently made little impact on Liberal stituencies Dem councillor until May 2011. He is a considered to be a moribund politi- fortunes in the immediately ensu- veteran of by-election campaigns starting cal party. ing years. A young psephological where their with Southend West in January 1959 Grimond became leader in researcher, writing immediately and including Orpington; he was Presi- autumn 1956, but already the May after the 1964 general election, advance was dent of the Liberal Party 1978–79. 1956 local elections had shown fur- clearly erred in dismissing Orping- ther small advances in the suburban ton Man so soon.5 Its Manchester prefigured in 1 R. B. McCallum & Alison Readman, belt, to be continued in each of the equivalent, Cheadle, was won by The British General Election of 1945 next three years. Since the Liberal the Liberals in 1966 – really a more 1955–59. (London, 1947), p. 243. Party’s historic base was so low in considerable achievement as this 2 D. E. Butler, The British General Elec- these areas, it took it several years was at a general election, not a tion of 1955 (London, 1955), p. 199–200. to begin to win more than a trickle by-election. Cheadle was the only 3 Brian Taylor in Keston & Hayes of seats. The first in the south-east urban seat to be gained without the ward, who is still attending Liberal London suburbs came in Bromley help of a by-election between 1935 Democrat conferences; his grand- in May 1957,3 next door to Orping- and 1983, and its main successor daughter Rebecca Taylor has just ton; the first gains in Orpington seat, Hazel Grove, was to be held become the Liberal Democrat MEP Urban District itself came in May again briefly in 1974. for Yorkshire. 1959. There were more gains in The long-term parliamentary 4 Calculations by the author based north London suburbs, particularly impact of ‘Orpington Man’ was strictly on constituencies with three- Finchley. only really apparent after another cornered fights at both elections, By then, the Grimond-led party generation. From 1997 onwards thirteen in outer London and three had secured striking parliamen- Liberal Democrats have held sev- south of Manchester. tary by-election advances, with eral of the suburban constituencies 5 Michael Steed, in D. E. Butler & Rochdale and Torrington in 1958 where their advance was prefigured Tony King The British General Election making the national headlines. in 1955–59. This produced a higher of 1964 (London, 1965), p. 351. These were both pockets of tradi- level of voting strength, activism, 6 These are four in south-west London, tional Liberal strength, feeding an presence in local government and so two on the southern side of Man- image of the party’s dependence on general credibility in these constitu- chester and two on the eastern side of such areas. Observations derived encies which in due course enabled Birmingham; it is debatable how far from parliamentary by-elections tactical squeezing of Labour voters. the latter pair (Solihull and Yardley) are of course always subject to the Following the 2010 general elec- belong in this group, as the growth accidents of where they occur. A tion, Liberal Democrats hold con- here of Liberal electoral strength is more careful study of the pattern stituencies that include traditional much later – but they are similar in of advance in local elections in the strongholds in Scotland, Wales housing and social history.

Journal of Liberal History 74 Spring 2012 43