The General Election of 1951 occurred only eighteen months into a parliament. It was called by a Labour government with a small parliamentary majority led by Clement Attle then at the head of what was a tired and ageing administration.
For the Liberals led by another Clement it proved to be a very difficult campaign for a party wracked by decades of division and desperately short of money. Liberalism was split with the breakaway National Liberals propped up by the Tories still enjoying parliamentary representation.
A situation that would exist until 1968.
Clement Davies, himself a former National Liberal, led the Liberal Party reluctantly followed the defeat of his predecessor Sir Archibald Sinclair in the 1945 Labour landslide. An attempt by Sinclair to regain his Caithness and Sutherland seat in 1950 had narrowly failed.
In 1951 only 109 candidates could be mustered and of these only 6 were elected an overall loss of 3.
The parliamentary party consisted of Davies, representing Montgomery, Donald Wade (Huddersfield West), Arthur Holt (Bolton West), Roderick Bowen (Cardigan), Rhys Hopkins Morris (Carmarthen) and Jo Grimond (Orkney and Shetland). Of these only Grimond had faced a Conservative opponent. Wade and Holt were successful only due to a local pact with the Tories. They were a diverse bunch and, as Chief Whip, Wade had quite a job working for a unified party position in the Commons. Bowen and Rhys Morris were on the right of the party, while Grimond represented a more socially liberal outlook.
Grimond’s philosophy would later become more developed following his assumption of the party leadership and his call for a non socialist left of centre alternative to conservatism. Despite the difficulties the Liberal show somehow stayed on the road. The history books tells us that Winston Churchill the returning Prime Minister and himself a former Liberal MP offered Davies a place in his cabinet at the Department of Education following the Tory election victory.
Acceptance might have meant the end for the party but after consultating with colleagues the offer was rejected by Davies.
Grimond is quite rightly credited with revitalising the Liberals beginning with the 1958 by election triumph in Torrington. This was the first byelection gain for the party in nearly thirty years and was followed by more including the famous one at Orpington in 1962. However it was Davies who held things together through difficult times and who arguably saved the party from outright extinction.
For those who thought 2015 was bad and it undoubteadly was 1951 has to be the nadir of liberalism.
The brave men and women who kept the party alive during those dark days are worthy of our appreciation. Without them there may never have been the modern day Liberal Democrats.
* David is a member of Horsham and Crawley Liberal Democrats