Forrest then retained this seat until 2 September 1918, when he died off the coast of Sierra Leone from cancer while en route to England.

[1] However, Hughes was distrusted by some on the conservative side of politics for his past involvement in socialist politics as Labor leader, and disaffected conservative farmers were moved to support the new Country Party, which had been formed in Western Australia in 1913 (and would be formed federally in 1922 from an amalgamation of state-based parties).

[1] At the time of the 1918 Swan by-election, Australia used a first past the post voting system, as was used in the United Kingdom, in all elections at the federal level.

[7] Preferential voting was first put to use in the Corangamite by-election for the Victorian seat of Corangamite two months later, and Labor candidate and future Prime Minister James Scullin topped the primary vote, only to be defeated after distribution of preferences by William Gibson of the Victorian Farmers' Union.

[8] In a twist of fate William Watson, who finished a distant fourth in this by-election with just 4.6% of the vote, would be elected to the House of Representatives for the Division of Fremantle at the 1922 election on the back of preferences from Nationalist candidate William Hedges, the same man who had also contested the by-election and had previously been the member for Fremantle.