Edwin Scrymgeour

Who was Edwin Scrymgeour?

Edwin Scrymgeour, was a Member of Parliament for Dundee, 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.

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 this aim.

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 continued to fight at every election thereafter, increasing his vote. In part this was because of his popularity, general left-wing sympathies and history with the labour movement. Churchill's stance against suffragettes may have had an impact in a city where many women were breadwinners, while many men were "kettle boilers".

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