Winston Churchill was famously rejected by the electors of North-West Manchester when he was appointed as President of the Board of Trade in 1908, before being found a suitable berth at Dundee. He was certainly not the first high profile casualty of a ministerial by-election.
Lord John Russell, the new Home Secretary (and future Prime Minister), was defeated at South Devon in May 1835. William Gladstone, appointed as Colonial Secretary, abandoned his candidature for Newark in irritation after a protectionist opponent came forward in January 1846, and although his name was subsequently linked with numerous other constituencies, he remained out of the Commons until the next general election in 1847.
Following last week’s Cabinet reshuffle, several ministers will be getting to grips with the challenges of their new departments. However, unlike the nineteenth century, they are at least spared the extra burden of seeking renewed endorsement from their constituents. Under a law passed in the reign of Queen Anne (1707), anyone accepting ‘an office of profit under the Crown’ – which included not only ministerial posts, but also a wide range of lesser positions – had to vacate his parliamentary seat and seek re-election. Those moving between offices also faced a by-election. In 1859 Thomas Milner Gibson had to stand twice in quick succession for Ashton-under-Lyne: on 27 June, after being appointed as president of the Poor Law Board, and then again on 9 July after being moved to the presidency of the Board of Trade. Ministerial by-elections made up more than a quarter of all by-elections taking place between…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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