The Bolton East by-election, 1960 was a by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Bolton East in Lancashire on 16 November 1960. It was won by the Conservative Party candidate Edwin Taylor.
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Vacancy
The seat became vacant when the sitting Conservative Member of Parliament Philip Bell, QC, was appointed as a County Court Judge. He had held the seat since the 1951 general election.
The by-election saw the decision of the Liberal Party to field a candidate, which broke a local pact which had held for 10 years whereby the Liberals left the Bolton East seat alone, and in return the Conservatives did not stand in Bolton West; the pact had achieved its objective of preventing the Labour Party from winning either.
Result
Taylor was elected by a margin of 641 votes over Labour candidate Robert Howarth, with the Liberal candidate Frank Byers securing a quarter of the vote. Dissension within the Labour Party over nuclear disarmament was thought to have helped Taylor win.
At the 1964 general election, a more organised Labour campaign in Bolton East saw Taylor voted out by a margin of more than 3,000 votes (with the Liberals simultaneously losing Bolton West by roughly the same margin).