In June 1928 he was invited to stand for Edinburgh University. He replied:
I do hope you will forgive me if there has been any delay in acknowledging your exceedingly flattering communication; I have been away from home and moving about a good deal; and have only just returned from London. Certainly there is nothing which I should feel as so great an honour, or one so exciting or so undeserved, as to receive even the invitation to stand for such a position in the great University that has already been so generous to me. If you really think it would be of any service to your cause, I can hardly refuse such a compliment. Of course you understand that it is only in a rather independent sense, though as I think in the right sense, that I shall always call myself a Liberal; indeed, I find it difficult to imagine any real sort of Liberal who is not really an independent Liberal. I am quite certain I am not a Tory or a Socialist.
He was defeated at this election by Winston Churchill who got 864 votes to 593 for G.K. and 332 for Mrs. Sidney Webb. He was again defeated at Aberdeen in 1933, coming second to Major Elliott, the other candidates being C. M. Grieve and Aldous Huxley. At one stage of the contest the Daily Express writes: "The Huxley supporters are smarting under the surprise attack made by the Chestertonians at the Huxley concert at the week-end and are preparing reprisals."
The following letter is G.K.'s reply to the first proposal from the
Aberdeen students:
25th October, 1933
I can at least assure you that the delay in acknowledging properly the most flattering compliment which you have paid me was not due to any notion of neglecting it. It was due to the practical necessity at the moment of discovering and deciding on a fact which may, for all I know, save you the trouble of further consideration of the matter; and it is for this reason that I mention the practical difficulty first. I now find that I shall almost certainly be obliged to be out of England (and Scotland) for about three or four months, or conceivably a little more, beginning about the middle of January. I do not know what preliminary formalities would be demanded of me as a candidate, or when the demand for them would arise. But I was so strongly impressed with the honour you have paid me that I thought it my duty to find out the facts on this particular point, so that you might act on it in any way you think right. In any case, if the delay thus involved has placed you in any difficulty, I need not say that I shall fully understand your finding the project unworkable; and I shall be quite content to remember the compliment of the request.
There is another consideration which would help the practical side of the case; and for that I fear I must make the practical enquiries of you, as people understanding the circumstances. You do not mention the Party you represent; and though I am, like most of us, long past attaching a horrid sanctity to the name, I hope you will forgive that much curiosity in a poor bewildered journalist, who has been exhibited in many lights and cross-lights. I was put up as a candidate at Glasgow as a Liberal, which is really quite true; but I think I managed in my election pamphlet to give my own definition of Liberalism. I have also more recently, on a public platform in Glasgow, supported my friend Mr. Compton Mackenzie when he stood as a Scottish Nationalist. Both these positions I am quite prepared to defend; but in the latter, you might naturally prefer a Nationalist candidate who was not only a quarter of a Scotsman. I may remark that as the quarter is called Keith, and comes from Aberdeen, I am rather thrilled at the name of Marischal College.
There is one other point I think it only right to mention, for your sake as much as my own. You know the local conditions. Do you think it likely that we should be left with one and a half votes, looking a little ridiculous, because the miserable quarter of a Scot happens to have the same religion as Bruce and Maxy Stuart? I only ask for information; which you alone could supply. But it may be that the considerations I have already mentioned have disposed of the matter. Believe me, my gratitude is none the less.
Gilbert said of my father that he showed an embarrassing respect for younger men. Surely Gilbert's own tone of respect must here have embarrassed even undergraduates. The uncertainty of success or failure only troubled him as it might affect his supporters. The sporting element in the contest appealed to his undying boyishness.
Perhaps this chapter may find its best conclusion in the vivid memories written down in answer to my request of one of Gilbert's younger friends—Douglas Woodruff—who came to know him in the year of that Silver Wedding which meant so much that I have chosen it for the title of a chapter covering much of Chesterton's Catholic life.