The 1970 University of Kent at Canterbury election for the position of Chancellor was called following the death of the first Chancellor, Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, née Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark was a member of the British Royal Family; the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom and Mary of Teck....

, on August 27, 1968. Following protracted discussions and arrangements the election was held May 7, 1970, with the winner Jo Grimond installed in July 1970.

Electorate, nominations and rules

The death of Princess Marina came suddenly, less than four years after the University's creation, and no formal process had been developed for selecting a new Chancellor.
Although in theory a Chancellor could have been appointed in the same manner as the Vice-Chancellor, growing demands for student participation in the running of universities and a belief that the Chancellor should represent the entire University led to the Council and Senate agreeing to a direct election by all students, monthly-paid staff and members of the Council.

Because of concerns that a frivolous candidate might be elected, a complex system of nominations was agreed:

• All members of the electorate could nominate, but nominations would initially remain confidential
• A joint committee of six members nominated by the Council, six members nominated by the Senate and six members elected by the students at large would consider the nominations
• A short-list would be drawn up of those who received the support of at least fourteen members of the committee (thus requiring support in all three sections of the membership) and who were not objected to by more than four members (thus allowing each section as a whole a veto).
• Candidates on the short-list would be asked to indicate their assent to taking part in the election.
• Only then would the remaining names be made public.

Voting was to be by means of the alternative vote

Instant-runoff voting

Instant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...

.

The process was not begun until October 1969. The joint committee was initially chaired by Sydney Irving

Sydney Irving

Sydney Irving, Baron Irving of Dartford was a British Labour Co-operative politician.Irving was educated at Pendower School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the London School of Economics...

, Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

.

Candidates

Only those who were approved by the committee and assented to the election had their names made public. Several people whose names were approved subsequently declined the position.

Those who were put to the electorate were as follows:

• William Golding
  William Golding
  Sir William Gerald Golding was a British novelist, poet, playwright and Nobel Prize for Literature laureate, best known for his novel Lord of the Flies...
  
  , author and poet.
• Jo Grimond, Member of Parliament
  Member of Parliament
  A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
  
   for Orkney and Shetland
  Orkney and Shetland (UK Parliament constituency)
  Orkney and Shetland is a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
  
   and former leader of the Liberal Party
  Liberal Party (UK)
  The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
  
  .
• Dame Kathleen Lonsdale
  Kathleen Lonsdale
  Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, DBE FRS was a crystallographer, who established the structure of benzene by X-ray diffraction methods in 1929, and hexachlorobenzene by Fourier spectral methods in 1931...
  
  , crystallographer
  Crystallography
  Crystallography is the experimental science of the arrangement of atoms in solids. The word "crystallography" derives from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and grapho = write.Before the development of...
  
   and pacifist campaigner, first woman professor at University College London
  University College London
  University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
  
  .
• George Woodcock
  George Woodcock (trade unionist)
  George Woodcock was a British trade unionist and general secretary of the Trades Union Congress from 1960 to 1969....
  
  , recently retired General Secretary of the TUC
  General Secretary of the TUC
  The General Secretary of the TUC is the chief permanent officer of the Trades Union Congress, and a major figurehead in the trade union movement in the United Kingdom....
  
  .

Result

By agreement the numbers were not revealed, but all four candidates "were understood to have received 'respectable' votes". Jo Grimond was declared elected, and formally installed at the start of July. He served in the post until 1990.