| Background Information | Formed through the 1942 merger of the 1941 Committee and the Forward March movement, Common Wealth was a small but high-profile socialist political party. Initially chaired by JB Priestley, and then, more prominently, by Sir Richard Acland, the party achieved several striking by-election successes during conditions of war-time electoral truce between the main parties, but failed to capitalise on these at the 1945 general election. Acland resigned in 1945, later re-entering Parliament as a Labour MP, but the party continued a level of activity until the early 1990s. Source: www.sussex.ac.uk |
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