1955 United Kingdom general election in England
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All 511 English seats in the House of Commons 256 seats needed for English majority | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 26 May 1955 to elect 630 members of the House of Commons, of which 511 constituencies were in England. It was called immediately after Anthony Eden succeeded Sir Winston Churchill as prime minister in order to strengthen the position of the Conservative Party in the Commons where it enjoyed only a slender majority.
The Conservative Party recorded a second consecutive victory over the Labour Party. It was the first time since 1935 that the Conservative Party won a greater share of the vote over the Labour Party. It is also to be noted that the 50.4% voteshare recorded by the Conservatives remains the largest share of the vote recorded by any party in a post-war general election. The 46.8% voteshare recorded by the Labour Party in England has been exceeded by the party only once since then- in the 1966 general election.[1]
It was also the first of 18 general elections held under the reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the first general election whose television coverage is existent. At the same time, it was the fifth and the last election in which the Labour Party was led by Clement Attlee.
