William Bird (solicitor)

For other people named William Bird, see William Bird (disambiguation).

Sir William Bird
Member of Parliament
for Chichester
In office
23 April 1921 – 16 November 1923
Preceded byLord Edmund Talbot
Succeeded byCharles Rudkin
Personal details
Born(1855-07-11)11 July 1855
Died13 November 1950(1950-11-13) (aged 95)
NationalityBritish
Political partyConservative
ProfessionPolitician

Sir William Barrott Montfort Bird (11 July 1855 – 13 November 1950)[1] was a British solicitor and briefly a Conservative politician.

The son of William Frederic Wratislaw Bird, of Wilmington in Kent, he was educated at Bruce Castle School and admitted as a solicitor 1880. He was a director of Williams Deacon's Bank, and of other companies, and was Justice of the Peace for West Sussex. In 1895 he married Margaret Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Spencer, and widow of James H. Murray.[2]

He was elected unopposed as Member of Parliament for Chichester at a by-election in April 1921 following the resignation of the sitting Conservative MP Lord Edmund Bernard Talbot, who had been appointed as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.[3]

At the 1922 general election, Bird was re-elected with a massive majority over his only opponent, a Labour Party candidate. However, he faced a Liberal Party opponent for the first time at the 1923 general election, and lost his seat. He did not stand for Parliament again.[3]

  1. ^ "House of Commons constituencies beginning with "C" (part 4)". Leigh Rayment's House of Commons pages. Archived from the original on 24 October 2008. Retrieved 23 April 2009.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  2. ^ "Debrett's House of Commons". via Archive.org. 1922. Retrieved 23 April 2009.
  3. ^ a b Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 484. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.