John Hope (Liberal politician)

John Deans Hope (8 May 1860 – 13 December 1949) was a Scottish Liberal Party politician.

Hope was born in Duddington, Midlothian, the son of the late James Hope of Eastbarns, Dunbar, a famous agriculturalist. In 1899 he married Elizabeth Holmes-Kerr whose father had homes in Glasgow and Underbank in Ayrshire. They had one daughter. His brother, Sir Harry Hope, 1st Baronet, was the Unionist MP for Buteshire. Hope was educated at Fettes College and Edinburgh University.

By profession Hope was a chartered accountant and later became a stockbroker. Hope was also a Justice of the Peace in Haddingtonshire.

Hope first stood for Parliament at West Perthshire at the 1895 general election but could not remove the sitting Liberal Unionist MP Sir Donald Currie.

However he was successful in being returned as Liberal MP for West Fife in succession to Augustine Birrell in the Khaki election of 1900

Shortly after his election, Hope was described in Dod's Parliamentary Companion as a Radical who was opposed to Imperialism. This was shorthand for being opposed to the Boer War.

and he held the seat until the general election of December 1910 when he lost to the Labour candidate William Adamson the Secretary of the Fife Miners’ Association.

Hope did not have long to wait before getting the chance to return to Parliament as in 1911 the MP for Haddingtonshire, Richard Haldane, was made a Viscount and went to the House of Lords and Hope was chosen by the local Liberals to succeed him. In the by-election that followed Hope emerged the winner with 3,652 votes to the 3,184 of the Unionist candidate B Hall Blyth – a respectable majority of 468 (albeit a decrease on the last election of over 200).