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1937 North Dorset by-election

UK by-election

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 27, 2025
Entity authorityQ17016753 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1937 North Dorset by-election was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of North Dorset on 13 July 1937.

Vacancy

The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Conservative MP, Sir Cecil Hanbury, on 10 June 1937. He had been MP here since gaining the seat in 1924.

Electoral history

The constituency had been won by the Conservatives at every election since they gained it from the Liberals in 1924. The result had always been close between the two parties since the Liberals won comfortably in 1906. The Labour party had only twice before fought the seat, in 1929 and at the last election in 1935. At that election, an Independent 'Agriculture' candidate from a longstanding local Conservative family pushed Labour into fourth place.

Candidates

The Conservative candidate was 54-year-old Captain Angus Hambro. He was Member of Parliament for South Dorset from 1910 to 1922. He became High Sheriff of Dorset in 1934.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “1937 North Dorset by-election” is uK by-election. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through North, Dorset and by-election, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA strong contextual entry point for chronology, institutions and public events when official records are distinguished from later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 1924, 1906, 1929—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, North, Dorset and by-election is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “uK by-election” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q17016753. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1924, 1906 and 1929.

Critical limits

Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1937 North Dorset by-election”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1937 North Dorset by-election primary sources, 1937 North Dorset by-election archive and North research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1937 North Dorset by-election”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1937 North Dorset by-election” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.