George Nicholls (British politician)

{{Short description|British politician (1864–1943)}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}

{{Use British English|date=March 2017}}

File:George_Nicholls.jpg

George Nicholls (25 June 1864 – 30 November 1943){{Rayment-hc|N|3|date=March 2012}} was a British evangelical pastor, and Liberal-Labour{{cite book

|last=Craig

|first=F. W. S.

|authorlink= F. W. S. Craig

|title=British parliamentary election results 1885–1918

|origyear=1974

|edition= 2nd

|year=1989

|publisher= Parliamentary Research Services

|location=Chichester

|isbn= 0-900178-27-2

|page=359

}} politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Northamptonshire from 1906 to 1910.

Nicholls started life as a farm labourer and smallholder.The Times House of Commons, 1929; Politico’s Publishing, 2003 p91 He went on to be Pastor at the Evangelist Congregational Church in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, from 1894 to 1902, and afterwards of Congregational Churches at Silverdale and Chesterton, in Staffordshire.{{cite web

|url=https://vcaps.host/

|title=NICHOLLS, George

|last=A & C Black

|date=1920–2008

|work=Who Was Who

|publisher=Oxford University Press

|accessdate=9 August 2010

}} Online edition, December 2007.

He was elected as MP for North Northamptonshire at the 1906 general election,{{London Gazette

|issue= 27885

|date= 13 February 1906

|page=1044

|city= London

}} but was defeated at the January 1910 general election.

After his defeat he stood for Parliament again in Faversham at the December 1910 general election,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1885–1918, page 304 and in Newmarket at a by-election in May 1913,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1885–1918, page 228 but was unsuccessful on both occasions.

He was elected to Peterborough town council in 1912, and became the town's mayor from 1916 to 1918.

He was the chief organiser for the Allotment and Small Holdings section of the Agricultural Organisation Society, and a member of the Agricultural Wages Board, of a Royal Commission on Agriculture, of the Central Agricultural Council, of the Soke of Peterborough Small Holdings Committee, and of Peterborough United Charities. He was awarded the OBE and served as a Justice of the Peace.

After World War I, he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament on six further occasions. As a Labour Party candidate in Camborne at the 1918 general election, he narrowly lost to the sitting Liberal MP Sir Francis Dyke Acland.{{cite book

|last=Craig

|first=F. W. S.

|authorlink= F. W. S. Craig

|title=British parliamentary election results 1918–1949

|origyear=1969

|edition=3rd

|year=1983

|publisher= Parliamentary Research Services

|location=Chichester

|isbn= 0-900178-06-X

|page=311

}} He then stood as a Liberal Party candidate in Peterborough at the 1922 general election,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1918–1949, page 438 in Warwick and Leamington at the 1923 and 1924 general elections,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1918–1949, page 493 in Bury St Edmunds at a by-election in January 1925,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1918–1949, page 470 and in Harborough at the 1929 general election,Craig, British parliamentary election results 1918–1949, page 411