[1] The constituency returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system.

Oswald Partington had been Liberal MP for the seat of High Peak since the 1900 general election.

On 5 July 1909, he was appointed as a Junior Lord of the Treasury, which meant, in accordance with the times, that he was required to resign his seat and seek re-election to parliament.

[2] The major incident of the campaign was Partington's challenge to fight a reporter of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph.

The presses of that paper had been used to print the High Peak Elector, a campaign newspaper published by the Conservatives, which Partington claimed had slighted his wife, Clara.