MP ready to turn back on area

MP Arthur Ponsonby looked, 100 years ago, as if he was bidding to shake the dust of his Stirling constituency off his shoes and move to Fife.

He had recently attended meetings in Cowdenbeath and Dunfermline and it looked as if he was going to become a candidate for the Dunfermline Burghs seat. The speculation followed changes in the boundaries of Westminster constituencies.

The Observer said his name had also been mentioned in connection with candidacy of the new Stirling constituency but added:“There is no hint of his intention to visit this part of the world again in a political capacity and we cannot say there is any particular desire that he should, except among the Socialist element.”

Mr Ponsonby, a Liberal, had represented the constituency since 1908 and was a supporter of the Union of Democratic Control.

The organisation was formed in 1914 following the outbreak of the war and was opposed to military influence in government.

While claiming not to be a pacifist organisation, it said the war was the result of secret international understandings which were not subject to democratic overview.

Nevertheless, it was seen by many as anti-war and Mr Ponsonby’s support for the organisation attracted many critics in his constituency.

In December 1916 Mr Ponsonby was heckled when he made a rare visit to Stirling to address a public meeting on the subject of the war at the Albert Hall.

The Observer added:“(Mr Ponsonby) has been for a long time, far more in sympathy with his new friends than those who elected him to Parliament and whom he continues to misrepresent there because he refuses to take the manly course of testing their feelings at the polling booth.”