The seat had become vacant when the Coalition Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Alexander Theodore Gordon died on 6 March 1919 aged just 37, from heart failure after suffering from influenza.

Henderson, no doubt eager to return to Parliament, and fully supported by the local Liberal Association, had reportedly made his peace with Freddie Guest, Lloyd George's Chief Whip.

[5] Henderson further muddied the waters by standing down as Liberal candidate and the local Association turned instead to Major Murdoch McKenzie Wood, a barrister and former Gordon Highlander, who had unsuccessfully fought Ayr Burghs at the 1918 general election.

[6] The contest was a three-cornered affair, with Joseph F. Duncan, the general secretary of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union, fighting the seat for Labour.

However the combined Liberal and Labour vote amounted to 63.9% of the poll and was clearly a severe blow to the Coalition, coming so soon after their overwhelming success in the 1918 general election and hard on the heels of other by-election defeats in Hull and Leyton West.