1964 Greater London Council election

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox election The first election to the Greater London Council (GLC) was held on 9 April 1964.

Background

The election happened at a time of very high political tension, with a general election due in a few months. The GLC did not come into its powers until 1 April 1965, but spent the first year setting up its committee structure and arranging with its predecessor authorities to take over.

Electoral arrangements

New constituencies to be used for elections to Parliament and also for elections to the GLC had not yet been settled, so the London boroughs were used as multi-member 'first past the post' electoral areas. Westminster was joined with the City of London for this purpose. Each electoral area returned between 2 and 4 councillors.

The first election to the Greater London Council took place a month before the first election to the 32 London borough councils on 7 May 1964.

Results

General election of councillors

The Labour Party won a majority of seats at the election.

When the GLC was being planned, it was expected to produce Conservative majorities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> However, many suburban Conservative-voting areas had successfully campaigned to be excluded from the Greater London boundaries.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

The large constituencies where the winner took all exaggerated Labour's win in votes into a near two-to-one lead in terms of seats. It also made it extremely difficult for the Liberal Party to win any seats.

With an electorate of 5,466,756, there was a turnout of 44.2%.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="GLC 1964">Template:Cite web</ref> Labour did particularly well to win Bexley and Havering, but performed poorly in Enfield which they might have expected to win. In Tower Hamlets, the Communist Party of Great Britain came in as runners-up with 8% of the vote.

Party		Votes			Seats
		Number	%	Stood	Seats	%
Template:Party name with colour	1,063,390	44.6	100	64	64.0
Template:Party name with colour	956,543	40.1	100	36	36.0
Template:Party name with colour	238,967	10.0	86	0	0.0
Template:Party name with colour	90,779	3.8	36	0	0.0
Template:Party name with colour	19,983	0.9	9	0	0.0
Template:Party name with colour	5,858	0.3	3	0	0.0
	Christian Independent	2,895	0.1	1	0	0.0
	New Liberal	2,474	0.1	3	0	0.0
Template:Party name with colour	2,353	0.1	2	0	0.0

Aldermanic election

In addition to the 100 councillors, there were sixteen aldermen elected by the council. The eight aldermen with the least votes were elected to serve until 1967 and the other eight until 1970. The aldermen were elected on 27 April 1964. Template:Columns-start Aldermen elected in 1964, to retire in 1967:

Party		Alderman
Template:Party name with colour	Charles Christopher
Template:Party name with colour	Arthur Edwards
Template:Party name with colour	Andrew Jardine
Template:Party name with colour	Albert Knowlden
Template:Party name with colour	Terence McMillan
Template:Party name with colour	John Mason
Template:Party name with colour	Bernard Rockman
Template:Party name with colour	Donald SoperTemplate:Efn

Template:Column Aldermen elected in 1964, to retire in 1970:

Party		Alderman
Template:Party name with colour	Frank BanfieldTemplate:Efn
Template:Party name with colour	Francis Bennett
Template:Party name with colour	Audrey Callaghan
Template:Party name with colour	Edward Castle
Template:Party name with colour	Alfred Chorley
Template:Party name with colour	Herbert Ferguson
Template:Party name with colour	Leslie Freeman
Template:Party name with colour	Edgar Garton

The aldermen divided 11 to Labour and 5 to the Conservatives, and so the overall strength of the parties on the council was 75 Labour to 41 Conservatives after the aldermanic election.

Constituency results

Results by electoral area

By-elections 1964-1967

Template:Further Less than a month after the election, Marjorie McIntosh (Labour, Hammersmith) died and precipitated a byelection; however, given that the voters had elected the GLC and the new London boroughs, the parties were short of money and the Conservatives decided not to oppose the Labour candidate who was returned unopposed on 18 June. Oliver Galley (Conservative, Harrow, died in October 1965 and the Conservatives retained his seat at a byelection on 27 January 1966.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By the end of the term, there were two seats vacant due to the resignations of Sir Joseph Haygarth (Conservative, Barnet) and Mrs Mavis Webster (Labour, Waltham Forest).

There was one aldermanic by-election in 1965 caused by the resignation of Donald Soper (Labour). Frederick Lionel Tonge (Labour) was elected by the council on 6 July 1965, to serve until 1967.