Winston Churchill's Liberal Party years, 1904–1924
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Winston Churchill was first elected to the UK Parliament at the 1900 general election as one of two Conservative Party members representing the Oldham constituency. He took his seat in the House of Commons in February 1901 but soon became critical of the Conservative government on a number of issues. On 31 May 1904, he formally crossed the floor of the Commons to join the opposition Liberals, remaining a party member until March 1924.
Churchill was less prolific as a writer through this period; he completed a two-volume biography of his father in 1906 but did not begin his next major work, The World Crisis, until December 1921. He married Clementine Hozier in September 1908 and their eldest child, Diana was born in July 1909. As a Liberal, Churchill held several ministerial roles, most notably as Home Secretary (1910–1911) and as First Lord of the Admiralty at the beginning of the First World War. He took most of the blame for the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and resigned from the government in November of that year to rejoin the Army. In January 1916, he was promoted temporarily to lieutenant-colonel of the 6th Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers who were active near Ploegsteert. Following a merger of battalions, he relinquished command and returned to politics. He reverted to the rank of major on 16 May.
In July 1917, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions by the new prime minister, David Lloyd George, and voted to support the Representation of the People Act 1918. In January 1919, he became jointly the Secretary of State for War and the Secretary of State for Air. In February 1921, he became the Secretary of State for the Colonies. Churchill suffered personal tragedies in 1921 with the deaths of both his mother and his two-year-old daughter, Marigold. His youngest child, Mary, was born in September 1922 and, in the same month, he completed purchase of his family home, Chartwell, in Kent.
Lloyd George's coalition splintered to necessitate the November 1922 general election. Churchill lost his seat at Dundee, which he had represented since May 1908. Out of Parliament, he devoted himself to painting and writing The World Crisis. In December 1923, he stood for the Liberals at Leicester West in the general election but lost. He was defeated again at the Westminster Abbey by-election the following March and became thoroughly disillusioned with the Liberal Party. In May 1924, he spoke at a Conservative meeting in Liverpool and, declaring that the Liberal Party was finished as a political force, he urged all Liberals to support the Conservatives to try and defeat the Labour Party and stop the spread of socialism. In October, following discussions with prime minister Stanley Baldwin, Churchill stood as a Constitutionalist candidate in the general election at Epping. He won and Baldwin appointed him as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Churchill severed his ties with the Liberal Party and rejoined the Conservative Party.