England described himself as a National Liberal MP 1922-31, but the truth was more complex and suggests some of the difficulties faced by Liberals as their party suffered its post First World War decline.
He was born at Barrowford on 3 january 1867 and educated privately. He was a wholesale clothier by trade.
He married Lucie, daughter of Edward Dunkerley in 1895.
He was a keen Territorial Army officer and fought in the First World War, serving first with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division and then with the 66th. (Lancashire) Division. From Egypt, he went to Gallipoli with the 42nd and then to the western front where he fought in both France and Belgium. He was subsequently one of a hundred members of that division who returned to Passchendaele on 13 October 1928 to see a memorial window unveiled in the reconstructed church. He was mentioned in despatches three times and was awarded the DSO in 1917. He was appointed CMG in 1919 and awarded the Territorial Decoration in 1921.
In 1922 he commanded the East Lancashire Divisional Train, RASC and for a decade after resigning his command in 1923, he served as honorary Colonel of the formation.
When Illingworth went to the Lords in 1921, the Liberal candidate was unacceptable to both the Unionists and supporters of Lloyd George and they picked England to contest Heywood and Radcliffe as a Coalition Liberal in the subsequent by-election, but in a three-cornered fight lost to the Labour candidate, Walter Halls, with the Liberal a bad third. Fighting as a National Liberal he took the seat from Halls in the 1922 General Election by 19,016 votes to 15,334 and retained it as a Liberal in December 1923 by 17,163 to Halls’s 15,273. In the run up to that election he presided over a luncheon in the Reform Club at which Churchill welcomed the new found unity of the Liberal party. In proposing Churchill’s health England praised the magnificent conception of the Gallipoli campaign, which, if carried out properly, might have shortened the war by years.
He stood as a Constitutionalist in 1924 and won comfortably enough by 19,131 to the Labour candidate’s 15,367, but by 1929 he had reverted to being a Liberal. He defeated his Socialist opponent by 22,692 to 20,745. Throughout he appears to have enjoyed Unionist support in his seat, and he was one of those to back Simon in 1931. rather than split the national vote, he reluctantly withdrew from the contest in Heywood and Radcliffe as the Conservatives had a candidate for the first time in twenty years and J.C.Jackson KC fighting as a Conservative duly trounced his Labour opponent.
England strongly upheld the Liberal tradition of individualism and his championship of Liberalism in the House and constituency was rewarded in 1934 by his election as President of the Manchester Reform Club.
However, he was supportive of the course taken by Sir John Simon in 1931 and was a founding member of the Liberal National Council, which was formed in July 1932 to support Simon, Runciman and the national Government. As a prominent National Liberal he presided over the mass meeting in Manchester to which Neville Chamberlain spoke on 21 November 1934 as part of the National Government’s autumn campaign.
He died on 4 January 1949