It was won for all but three years by the Conservative candidate, the exception being the years 1906-1909 when that party, as a fellow Unionist party against Irish Home Rule and other devolution in a spell of widespread popular decline held a general meeting endorsing instead H. O. Arnold-Forster, a Liberal Unionist. His 3.2% victory against the candidate of the rest of the Liberal Party coupled with a 20.2% performance for Labour in Croydon which coincided with a Liberal landslide — the First Asquith ministry which brought in the fundamental constitutional reform of the Parliament Act 1911 after the delay for "the People's Budget" to be implemented. He died in 1909 causing a by-election and his party, with its occasional candidates in the region, no longer stood for the Croydon seat nor its north/south successors after 1918. The Labour party fielded a candidate for the second time in the 1909 by-election, polling badly, winning about a fifth of the 1906 vote; the party fielded none in the 1910 elections for this seat.