was rewarded with a knighthood in the King's Birthday Honours List. At the 1918 general election Barton seems to have received the Coalition Coupon as he stood as a Coalition Liberal in Oldham in that contest. He was elected, as was a Coalition Conservative candidate, against Labour and Asquithian Liberal opposition with a majority of 11,076 votes. Clearly Barton's little local difficulty with his constituency Liberal Association had not been resolved given that they were prepared to put up a Wee Free candidate against him. Barton was not very forgiving as he told a colleague that his Asquithian opponent Walter Rea, a former Junior Lord of the Treasury in the Asquith administration, 'counted for nothing' and that he was all for teaching the local Liberal Association its place. The only thing that mattered in the election was supporting Lloyd George, the hero of the war. By 1921 however the troubles of a divided Liberal Party were impinging more pressingly on Barton's political consciousness and he was now less firmly in the Lloyd George camp. He was still reluctant to re-commit to Asquith observing: "I am not keen on joining Asquith, who seems to me in misfortune." But by the following year he was more kindly disposed telling the Manchester Guardian that Asquith expressed the "true Liberal position". In 1922 Barton chose not to defend his Oldham seat at the general election of that year. Instead he stood as Liberal candidate for Manchester Exchange, a safe Unionist seat. He finished a respectable second. He did not stand for parliament again. Other appointments Barton was a Justice of the Peace for the County of Lancaster, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and sometime Vice-President of the British Cotton Growers Association. References External links 1862 births 1957 deaths Politicians from Hamilton, South Lanarkshire Liberal Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1910–1918 UK MPs 1918–1922 Alumni of the University of Glasgow Politics of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham History of the Metropolitan Borough of Oldham Knights Bachelor Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for constituencies in Lancashire