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and William Gold, 45, an engineer and 'a Buddhist, anti-vivisectionist, periodic vegetarian and author of at least six unpublished novels' who had only just returned to the UK after living in Australia.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

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

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.