Edwin Scrymgeour

Edwin Scrymgeour
File:Edwin-Scrymgeour.jpg
Member of Parliament for Dundee
In office 15 November 1922 – 8 October 1931 Serving with E. D. Morel, Tom Johnston, Michael Marcus
Preceded by	Winston Churchill Alexander Wilkie
Succeeded by	Florence Horsbrugh Dingle Foot
Personal details
Born	(1866-07-28)28 July 1866 Dundee, Scotland
Died
Nationality	British
Political party	Scottish Prohibition
Education	West End Academy

Edwin Scrymgeour (28 July 1866 – 1 February 1947) was a British politician who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dundee in Scotland. He is the only person ever elected to the House of Commons on a prohibitionist ticket, as the candidate of the Scottish Prohibition Party. He was affectionately known as Neddy Scrymgeour.

Life

A native of Dundee, he was educated at West End Academy. He was a pioneer of the Scottish temperance movement and established his party in 1901 to further that aim.

In 1896 he is listed as a clerk, living at 42 Kings Road in Dundee.

He served on Dundee City Council and began contesting elections in the 1908 Dundee by-election, which saw Winston Churchill first elected for Dundee, and Scrymgeour continued to fight at every election thereafter and increased his vote. That was in part because of his popularity, generally left-wing sympathies and history with the labour movement. Churchill's stance against suffragettes may have had an impact in a city that had many women as breadwinners and many men as "kettle-boilers" (househusbands).

In 1910 he was living at 92 Victoria Road in Dundee.

In the 1922 election, Scrymgeour and the Labour candidate, E. D. Morel, jointly ousted Winston Churchill, who had represented the city as a Liberal (to then a Coalition Liberal). Scrymgeour remained an MP for Dundee until the 1931 general election, when he was ousted by Florence Horsbrugh.

Out of Parliament, Scrymgeour worked as an evangelical Chaplain at East House and Maryfield Hospital in Dundee. Scrymgeour was a leader of the unsuccessful opposition to disbanding the Scottish Prohibition Party in 1935.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Edwin Scrymgeour
• Three Dundonians: James Carmichael, Charles W Boase and Edwin Scrymgeour by SGE Lythe, JT Ward and DG Southgate (Abertay Historical Society 1968)

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Winston Churchill Alexander Wilkie	Member of Parliament for Dundee 1922–1931 With: E. D. Morel 1922–1924 Tom Johnston 1924–1929 Michael Marcus 1929–1931	Succeeded by Dingle Foot Florence Horsbrugh