John Plowright Houfton

Who was John Plowright Houfton?

Sir John Plowright Houfton was a British colliery owner and politician from Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. He sat in the House of Commons from 1922 to 1923.

Houfton first stood for election to Parliament at a by-election in May 1914, when he was the Liberal Party candidate for North East Derbyshire. The vacancy had been caused by the death of the sitting Member of Parliament William Harvey, who had been a Liberal-Labour candidate when first elected in 1907, and had held the seat with comfortable majorities at both elections in 1910. The local Liberal Association had sought to run another Liberal-Labour candidate, and were keen that James Martin, a prominent Liberal and President of the Derbyshire Miners Association, would be their candidate. However, Martin, who was keen to stand, was required by the MFGB to pledge support to the Labour Party. The Liberals therefore had to find a different candidate, and the by-election became a three-way contest, with Liberal, Labour and Conservative Party candidates. Houfton lost by a margin to 314 votes to the Conservative candidate George Bowden, with Labour's James Martin polling 22.5% of the votes.