Arthur Strauss

Who was Arthur Strauss?

Arthur Strauss was a British Liberal Unionist, and later Conservative Member of Parliament who later joined the Labour Party.

He was first elected to the House of Commons at the 1895 general election as Member of Parliament for Camborne, having unsuccessfully contested the seat in 1892. He was defeated at the 1900 general election, and failed to regain the seat at a by-election in 1903 after the death of his successor, William Sproston Caine.

At the 1906 general election, he was selected to stand as the Conservative candidate in Paddington North, where the sitting Conservative MP Sir John Aird was retiring and the local Conservative Association had found difficulty in selecting a candidate. However, his selection proved controversial, because Strauss was Jewish and the Liberal Party candidate Leo Chiozza Money was Italian, and a committee of objectors to "foreign" candidates was formed which persuaded Sir Henry Burdett to run as an Independent Unionist candidate. Although the constituency had at times been marginal, Paddington North had been held by a Conservative since its creation in 1885, but the split Unionist vote allowed Money to win the seat for the Liberals.