Author Archives: Chris Foote-Wood

Walter James: Last surviving 1950 General Election candidate

By Chris Foote-Wood | Mon 31st August 2015 - 12:55 pm

I don’t recall ever meeting Walter James, the last surviving candidate of any party who fought the 1950 General Election who has died aged 103, but I did hear my father Stanley Wood speak of him and I may have well have attended Liberal Party meetings at which James spoke.

James, who gained 1st class honours in modern history at Keble College, Oxford, wrote for the Manchester Guardian, had a distinguished career and later became a member of the BBC Advisory Council. In 1945 James was Liberal candidate for the Bury division in Lancashire, narrowly won from Labour by Tory Walter Fletcher. James was readopted, but boundary changes created the new seat of Bury & Radcliffe and he stood down as PPC in 1947 about the time my Dad Stan became Liberal Party agent.