| Election Name: | 1920 Belfast Corporation election |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Type: | Parliamentary |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Party Colour: | yes |
| Previous Election: | 1914 Belfast Corporation election |
| Previous Year: | 1914 |
| Next Election: | 1925 Belfast Corporation election |
| Next Year: | 1925 |
| Seats For Election: | All 60 seats to Belfast Corporation |
| Majority Seats: | 31 |
| Election Date: | 16 January 1920 |
| Party1: | Ulster Unionist Party |
| Seats1: | 35 |
| Leader1: | William Coates |
| Seat Change1: | 17 |
| Party2: | Belfast Labour Party |
| Seats2: | 12 |
| Leader2: | David Robb Campbell |
| Seat Change2: | 12 |
| Map Size: | 300px |
| Council control | |
| Posttitle: | Council control after election |
| After Election: | Irish Unionist |
An election to Belfast Corporation took place in January 1920 as part of that year's Irish local elections. The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1919 had seen elections for local government in Ireland change to a more proportional system. As a result, Unionist dominance of the Belfast council was somewhat undermined, and the party lost 15 seats. In contrast Labour, Sinn Féin, and Nationalist representation grew, resulting in a more politically and socially representative council.[1]
147 candidates stood for the sixty seats on the council. The sixty seats were in nine new wards, identical to the parliamentary constituencies.[2] In advance of the election, the Irish Times stated that it expected the Unionists to lose between five and eight seats, to be picked up by the Labour and Nationalist candidates, with Sinn Féin having a chance of taking one or two seats.[3]
The result in the Falls was controversial; over twenty candidates stood, creating the most complex election by single-transferable vote to date; and 764 votes were disallowed due to spoiled ballot papers. 300 of these lacked an official mark; this was because the printing press marking them had ceased adding it near the end of the run, but this error was not noticed until the election count took place.[4] [5]
After the election Sir William Coates, 1st Baronet was elected by the new council as Lord Mayor of Belfast.
Following the partition of Ireland the Northern Irish Government restored the older, and less representative ward based electoral system.[1]
| Party | valign=top | Candidates | valign=top | Seats | valign=top | ± | valign=top | First Pref. votes[6] | valign=top | FPv% | valign=top | ±% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| align=right rowspan=2 | 56 | 29 | align=right rowspan=2 | -17 | 40,907 | 45.95 | align=right rowspan=2 | |||||
| 6 | 4,699 | 5.28 | ||||||||||
| 37 | 10 | +10 | 12,768 | 14.34 | ||||||||
| 40 | 5 | align=right | -3 | 10,758 | 12.08 | |||||||
| 10 | 5 | +5 | 7,120 | 8.00 | ||||||||
| 2 | 4,167 | 4.68 | ||||||||||
| 2 | 3,007 | 3.37 | ||||||||||
| 1 | 4,467 | 5.02 | ||||||||||
| 0 | 1,138 | 1.28 | ||||||||||
| Totals | align=right | 60 | align=right | 89,031 | 100.00 | — |
Crawford McCullough (Unionist)
James McKirnan (Nationalist)
T. McConnell (Unionist)
T. J. Kennedy (Independent Unionist)
H. Riddell (Unionist)
Lennox (Labour Unionist)
Jameson (Unionist)
Alexander Boyd (Independent Labour)
G. M. Donaldson (Labour)
J. A. Doran (Unionist)
Alexander Hopkins (Unionist)
James Johnston (Unionist)
Hugh McLaurin (Unionist)
John Harkin (Nationalist)
James Augustine Duff (Unionist)
Frank Workman (Unionist)
T. Kennedy (Labour)
Thompson Donald (Labour Unionist)
Joseph Cosgrove (SF)
D. Jones (Unionist)
Joseph Davison (Unionist)
John Graham (Unionist)
Clarke Scott (Labour)
A. Hodgens (Unionist)
W. Macartney (Unionist)
W. Addis (Labour)