of the few speakers to be opposed in his own constituency, a sign of the bitterness of the time. It was not until the mid-1930s that it became common for a speaker to face some form of opposition for re-election. The 1951 election was similarly controversial. After the incumbent speaker, Douglas Clifton Brown, retired at the 1951 general election, there was a great demand from the Labour Party for Major James Milner to become the first Labour speaker after he had served as deputy speaker for eight years. However, the Conservatives (who had just regained power) nominated William Shepherd Morrison against him. The vote again went down party lines, and Morrison was elected. Milner received a peerage as compensation. In 1971, having had early warning that Horace King would be retiring, the Conservatives took the lead in offering to the Labour Party either Selwyn Lloyd or John Boyd-Carpenter as potential speakers. The Labour Party chose Selwyn Lloyd, partly because he was perceived as a weak figure. However, when the House of Commons debated the new speaker, Conservative MP Robin Maxwell-Hyslop and Labour MP Willie Hamilton nominated Geoffrey de Freitas, a senior and respected backbench Labour MP. De Freitas was taken aback by the sudden nomination and urged the House not to support him (a genuine feeling, unlike the feigned reluctance which all speakers traditionally show). Lloyd was elected, but there was a feeling among all parties that the system of election needed to be overhauled. A candidate's consent is now required before they can be nominated. Bernard Weatherill had announced his impending retirement a long time before the 1992 general election, leading to a long but suppressed campaign for support. Betty Boothroyd, a Labour MP who had been a deputy speaker, was known to be extremely interested in becoming the first woman speaker (and in doing so, finished the chances of fellow Labour MP Harold Walker who had also been a deputy speaker). The Conservative former Cabinet member Peter Brooke was put forward at a late stage as a candidate. Unlike previous elections, there was an active campaign among Conservative MPs to support Boothroyd and about 70 of them did so, ensuring her election. She was the only speaker elected in the 20th century not to be a member of the governing party at the time of her first election. Betty Boothroyd announced her retirement shortly before the summer recess