George Nicholls (25 June 1864 – 30 November 1943) [1] was a British evangelical pastor, and Liberal-Labour [2] politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Northamptonshire from 1906 to 1910. [1]
Nicholls started life as a farm labourer and smallholder. [3] He went on to be Pastor at the Evangelist Congregational Church in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, from 1894 to 1902, and afterwards of Congregational Churches at Silverdale and Chesterton, in Staffordshire. [4]
He was elected as MP for North Northamptonshire at the 1906 general election, [5] but was defeated at the January 1910 general election. [2]
After his defeat he stood for Parliament again in Faversham at the December 1910 general election, [6] and in Newmarket at a by-election in May 1913, [7] but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
He was elected to Peterborough town council in 1912, and became the town's mayor from 1916 to 1918. [4]
He was the chief organiser for the Allotment and Small Holdings section of the Agricultural Organisation Society, and a member of the Agricultural Wages Board, of a Royal Commission on Agriculture, of the Central Agricultural Council, of the Soke of Peterborough Small Holdings Committee, and of Peterborough United Charities. [4] He was awarded the OBE and served as a Justice of the Peace. [4]
After World War I, he stood unsuccessfully for Parliament on six further occasions. As a Labour Party candidate in Camborne at the 1918 general election, he narrowly lost to the sitting Liberal MP Sir Francis Dyke Acland. [8] He then stood as a Liberal Party candidate in Peterborough at the 1922 general election, [9] in Warwick and Leamington at the 1923 and 1924 general elections, [10] in Bury St Edmunds at a by-election in January 1925, [11] and in Harborough at the 1929 general election, [12]