Harris first stood for election at the
1906 general election when he was the Liberal candidate for the
Ashford Division of Kent. Ashford was a safe Conservative seat that they had won at every election since the seat was created in 1885. He was not expected to win and in an election that saw the Liberals sweep the country Harris came within 400 votes of toppling his Conservative opponent. Harris next contested the
1907 London County Council election for the
Progressive Party, the municipal wing of the Liberal Party. He contested
Bethnal Green South West alongside his running mate
Stewart Headlam and they were both elected. In 1910, Harris contested the
January 1910 general election as Liberal candidate for the
Harrow division of Middlesex. Harrow was a safe Conservative seat that had been unexpectedly won by the Liberal
James Gibb in 1906. Gibb had decided to retire and Harris was given the hard task of defending the seat. Harris had attended school in Harrow so knew the area a little. In a tougher year for the Liberals, Harrow was retaken by the Conservatives. Harris did not contest the
December 1910 general election. When the Liberal MP for Bethnal Green South West resigned his seat in 1911, Harris was keen to win the Liberal nomination for the
1911 Bethnal Green South West by-election, however, he withdrew in favour of
Charles Masterman. Harris's
London and its Government (1913) was the standard work on metropolitan municipal government.
Harborough In 1914, Harris was adopted as prospective Liberal candidate for the
Harborough division of Leicestershire for the general election expected to take place either in 1914 or 1915. Harborough was a Liberal seat where the elderly sitting member had decided to retire at the next election. However, the outbreak of war postponed the general election. In 1915, Harris was elected Deputy Chairman of the London County Council. In the meantime, the health of the Liberal MP for Harborough deteriorated and he resigned from parliament causing the
1916 Harborough by-election. Harris was readopted by the local Liberals and his candidacy was also officially endorsed by both the Unionist and Labour parties, due to the wartime electoral truce. However, Harris faced
a strong opponent in the by-election who received much Unionist support as well as strong support from prominent newspaper barons. Despite this, Harris was elected to
Parliament. In May 1918, when
H. H. Asquith challenged Prime Minister
David Lloyd George in the
Maurice Debate, Harris sided with Asquith and went into the division lobby against the Coalition Government.
Bethnal Green South West The split with the Harborough Liberals gave Harris the freedom to pursue a parliamentary career in
Bethnal Green South West, the seat he represented on the LCC. The parliamentary seat had a chequered history; the Liberals had won the seat on eight occasions but had lost it three times. At the last election in 1918, the Liberal candidate had finished third with just 24%, behind a socialist candidate supported by the
National Federation of Discharged and Demobilized Sailors and Soldiers. At the
1922 general election, Harris faced the Unionist MP who had taken the seat from the Liberals in 1914 and a Communist who had Labour Party support. The sitting Unionist member finished third and Harris regained the seat polling over 40% of the vote. Harris repeated his victory in 1923 when his Communist opponent ran as an official Labour Party candidate and in 1924 when that opponent once more ran as a Communist. The 1924 election was a very bad election for the Liberals nationwide but Harris's support had held up very well. During the 1924–29 parliament which was dominated by a Unionist majority, Harris worked closely with a group of radical Liberal MPs that included
William Wedgwood Benn,
Frank Briant,
Joseph Kenworthy and
Horace Crawfurd to provide opposition to the government. When the Liberal Party left the National Government following the defeat on Free Trade, Harris followed into opposition. At the 1935 general election, he faced just one opponent, a Labour Party candidate who was also opposed to the National Government. Harris held his seat with a reduced majority in a tough election for the Liberals which saw their Leader, Sir Herbert Samuel, lose his seat. In 1935, the new Liberal Leader
Sir Archie Sinclair appointed Sir Percy
Liberal Chief Whip in succession to
Walter Rea, who had also lost his seat at the recent general election.
Wartime Government In 1940, when Liberal Leader Sir Archie Sinclair took up a cabinet position in the Churchill Coalition Government he appointed Harris as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Parliamentary Party in addition to being Chief Whip. The deputy position had been vacant since Sinclair had become leader in 1935. At the same time Harris was appointed a
Privy Counsellor. On his shoulders fell much of the responsibility of leading the party in the Commons and in organising the party in the country. The Liberal Party was invigorated by the recruitment to its ranks of Sir William Beveridge, author of the
Beveridge Report and optimistically met the electorate at the
1945 general election. However, the election was a disappointment for the party and particularly for Harris who lost his seat in the Labour Party tide.
Latter years In 1946 Harris published his autobiography,
Forty Years In and Out of Parliament. Harris played a key role in the formation of
Liberal International in 1947 and was President of the
British Council of LI. He was re-elected in the 1949 London County Council Elections, but found himself to be the only Liberal on the Council and briefly holding the balance of power between Labour and Conservative. In 1950, Harris sought a similar return to parliament for the new merged seat of
Bethnal Green, but in a bad year for the Liberals, finished a distant second. Harris died in Kensington aged 76 in 1952. His monument in the churchyard of
St Nicholas Church, Chiswick is Grade II* listed. The relief carving by
Edward Bainbridge Copnall depicts the
resurrection of the dead. It was carved in the late 1920s and acquired by Harris for display in his garden at Morton House,
Chiswick Mall.
Electoral record ==References==