Walter Elliot (1888 – 1958)

Walter Elliot original David Low caricature portrait artwork

Elliot was elected as MP for Lanark in the1918 general election. He lost this seat in the 1923 general election but, a year later in a 1924 by-election, he was elected as MP for Glasgow Kelvingrove. He was seen by many as a rising star. In 1932 he entered the Cabinet as Minister of Agriculture and subsequently served as Secretary of State for Scotland and Minister of Health. Amongst his achievements were the Agricultural Marketing Act which sought to protect food producers from going bankrupt amidst massive surpluses and collapsing prices, the introduction of free milk for school children and formation of the National Housing Company which built prefabricated "Weir Houses" in Clydeside. In 1939, Elliot passed the Cancer Act 1939 - "An Act to make further provision for the treatment of cancer. In 1938, Elliot's career reached a turning point when he came close to resigning over the Munich Agreement but decided against. Consequently, his political stock began to fall and when Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as Prime Minister in 1940, Elliot was dropped from the government. He later served as Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. In the 1945 election, he lost his seat by just 45 votes. He was returned for the Combined Scottish Universities seat in a by-election in November 1946. When the university seats were abolished, Elliot returned to Kelvingrove where he beat his Labour opponent from 1945, John Lloyd Williams, and SNP candidate Hugh MacDiarmid in the 1950 election.

Size 18cm x 40cm

Medium Pencil on paper

Publication The Nation and the New Statesman

Published 18 November 1933