1913 Newmarket by-election

The vacancy occurred with the sudden death of the sitting Liberal Member of Parliament, Sir Charles Rose on 20 April 1913.

He had connections with the Newmarket area through his 1906 marriage to Irene, only child of Ernest de la Rue of Lower Hare Park.

He opposed many of the main policies of the Liberal Government, including Irish Home Rule, the Welsh Church Bill and the effects of the National Insurance Act 1911.

From this The Times was able to report that the blue of the Liberals was dominant in the Cambridge suburb of Cherry Hinton and in the southern and western parts of the constituency.

Nicholls agreed with this assessment, but also believed that his Non-Conformist religious views had lost him the powerful Anglican vote in the City of Ely, and that working men in the Newmarket area dependent on horse-racing for a living had opposed him.