F. W. S. Craig

Frederick Walter Scott Craig (10 December 1929 – 23 March 1989) was a Scottish psephologist and compiler of the standard reference books covering United Kingdom Parliamentary election results. He originally worked in public relations, compiling election results in his spare time which were published by the Scottish Unionist Party. In the late 1960s he launched his own business as a publisher of reference books, and also compiled various other statistics concerning British politics.

Craig also had a political career of his own, initially as an election agent and then as a candidate. Efforts to get elected in his native Glasgow being unsuccessful, after he moved to Chichester in 1970 he was first elected to the District Council and later to West Sussex County Council. However he fell out with a faction in the local Conservative Party and launched a rebel group which led to his expulsion. Late in his life he suffered severe depression and he committed suicide at the age of 59.

Craig was a native of Glasgow. He became interested in election statistics while still at school. He was active in the Scottish Unionist Party Association, and in 1954 began to contribute the 'Scottish Parliamentary Election Manual' of election results to the Yearbook for Scotland, which the party published. Craig was unhappy with existing sources for election statistics and undertook research himself to correct the vote figures and discover the source of independent candidates, and his election manual became highly respected.

As a paid agent for the Unionist Party, Craig was the election agent for James Hutchison in Glasgow Scotstoun in the 1955 general election and for the Unionist parliamentary candidate in Rutherglen in 1964. He twice fought for election to the Glasgow City Corporation in the mid-1960s. His first attempt was in May 1966 when he came forward as an Independent Conservative candidate against the 'Progressive Party', a local alliance between Conservatives and Liberals which controlled the council, in Kelvinside ward. Craig offered to withdraw if the Progressive councillor would repudiate that party's policy on council house rents, and to sit as a Conservative if the party split up; the offer was rejected.

...
Wikipedia