Hugh Ferguson (politician)
Hugh Ferguson (1863 – 4 November 1937) was a Scottish Unionist Party politician.
After a career as a soldier, Ferguson became involved in the Orange Order, a Protestant Unionist organisation based in Ireland. Believing that there was a base for his politics in the west of Scotland, he stood for the Motherwell constituency in several Parliamentary elections.
In the 1918 general election, Ferguson won only 10.7% of the vote. However, in the 1922 election, although there was a National Liberal candidate there was no official Unionist candidate, and Ferguson stood as an "Independent Unionist" beating the National Liberal and coming a close second to the Communist victor with 29.1%. By the 1923 election, he was able to secure his adoption as the official Unionist candidate,[1] and narrowly took the seat. He gained some notoriety by using an old anti Catholic law to block a Corpus Christi procession in heavily Catholic Carfin in his constituency that became a trigger for the Catholic Relief Act of 1926.[2] However, he only held the seat for a year, losing by an equally slim margin to James Barr, despite a swing against Labour in other parts of Scotland.[3]
Ferguson then faded from public view. In 1933, he was convicted of receiving stolen goods, namely iron plates and railway chairs. He died on 4 November 1937.[4]
References
- ^ although The Times of 8 Dec 1923 lists him as an Independent candidate
- ^ Rosie 2001, p. 177.
- ^ Rosie 2001, p. 178.
- ^ "Members since 1979" (PDF). House of Commons Library. 20 April 2009. Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 June 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
Sources
- Michael Stenton and Stephen Lees, Who's Who of British MPs: Volume III, 1919-1945
- Rosie, Michael John (2001). Religion and Sectarianism in Modern Scotland (Thesis).