1968 Kensington South by-election

The 1968 Kensington South by-election by-election was held in the Kensington South constituency of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 14 March 1968. The election was to fill a vacancy in the seat formerly held by Conservative MP William Roots, who resigned from Parliament in 1968 due to ill health.

The seat was considered a safe seat for the Conservatives ('as safe and solid as the red-brick Victorian blocks of flats', wrote the Times); at the 1966 general election Roots was elected with 65.1 percent of the vote and a majority of 14,631. Turnout was expected to be low as the constituency had a large transient population living in bedsits and flats.[1]

The Conservative Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams, a management consultant, won the seat with 75.5 percent of the vote and a slightly reduced majority (13,747) on a much reduced turnout. The Liberal candidate Thomas Kellock, a QC who had fought the seat at the previous general election, came in a distant second, with Labour candidate Clive Bradley, a barrister and journalist, forced into third place and losing his deposit.[2] There were two independent candidates who received the fewest votes: Sinclair Eustace, 37, a teacher of phonetics and a campaigner against aircraft noise, described by The Times as 'perhaps the most civilized and likeable' of all the candidates but with a platform very close to that of the Liberal Party; and William Gold, 45, an engineer and 'a Buddhist, anti-vivisectionist, periodic vegetarian and author of at least six unpublished novels' who had only just returned to the UK after living in Australia.[3]

Results

edit
By-Election 14 March 1968: Kensington South[4]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Brandon Rhys-Williams 16,489 75.5 +10.4
Liberal Thomas Kellock 2,742 12.6 −2.5
Labour Clive Bradley 1,874 8.6 −11.2
Independent Sinclair Eustace 675 3.1 New
Independent William Gold 59 0.3 New
Majority 13,747 62.9 +17.8
Turnout 21,839 40.0 −18.1
Conservative hold Swing

Notes

edit
  1. ^ Young, John (2 March 1968). "Bedsitter vote being wooed: Multiple clash a puzzle". The Times.
  2. ^ "Tories sweep in at Kensington Labour candidate loses deposit in low poll", The Times, 15 March 1968.
  3. ^ "Far From Madding Parties", The Times, 7 March 1968.
  4. ^ "1968 By Election Results". Archived from the original on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 21 August 2015.