In the latest of The Press’ flashbacks to General Elections down the years, political reporter MARK STEAD looks at York’s mid-1950s struggle for power.

WHEN this year’s General Election battle comes to the boil on Thursday, the blanket television coverage of the race for the political prize will be nothing new to most voters.

But in 1955, when York was the scene of a two-way fight for supremacy between the Conservatives and Labour, it was all very different.

This was the first General Election to boast a full-scale TV campaign, bringing a whole new dynamic to the battle for power amid fears over voter apathy, despite the fact 82.8 per cent of those eligible to have their say in York opted to do so.

Going into the election, the seat was held by Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, a Surrey-born alumni of both Eton and Oxford who had been knighted and become Solicitor General the previous year.

He became York’s MP in 1950, with that election giving him a knife-edge majority of 77, and although he increased that to 921 when the country next went to the polls the following year, in 1955 the seat was still seen as definite target territory for Labour.

Their candidate was Tom McKitterick, a Cambridge graduate and economist with, like his rival, a distinguished war record, and both men went into the campaign sounding similar notes. Sir Harry said he would “look forward to the result with confidence”, while Mr McKitterick announced: “We are confident of victory”.

They appeared on the same platform at the Drill Hall, in Colliergate, to discuss policies for older people, such a pensioners’ demand for a 50-shilling a week payment with no means test, but the big difference was the way the election was beamed into the living rooms of those with televisions.

The first party political broadcasts encouraged about four-and-a-half million people to tune in, although the Evening Press raised concerns that “people will forget about the local candidates and follow only the leaders” and said that would be “disastrous to the British democratic spirit”.

Mr McKitterick discovered the fickle nature of public interest when, two days after drawing a huge crowd to see Clement Attlee at the Co-operative Hall, only 16 people attended a meeting at Carr Junior School, leading him to state his greatest enemy was not the Tories, but the “prevailing spirit of apathy”.

Whether that was the sole cause of his defeat is questionable, but on May 26, a crowd of more than 500 waited in the rain outside the Assembly Rooms to discover Sir Harry had increased his majority to 1,104.

The next election would see him leave York and stand for the safer Cities of London and Westminster seat, as well as becoming Speaker of the House of Commons. He died in 1965 while still in office.


1955 at-a-glance

• York City’s Happy Wanderers enjoyed their famous run to the FA Cup semi-finals as a Third Division club, beating top sides such as Blackpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Notts County before ultimately losing in a replay to Newcastle United.

• Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister, being replaced by Anthony Eden.

• Legendary scientist and philosopher Albert Einstein died at the age of 76, while actor James Dean was killed in a California crash.

• The first edition of the Guinness Book of Records was published.

• ITV began broadcasting in Britain.