The seat had become vacant when the Coalition Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Sir Mark Sykes died on 16 February 1919 aged 39, a victim of the Spanish flu pandemic.

As with the Leyton West by-election 6 weeks earlier, the dominant issue of the campaign was the idea being floated by the Coalition Government of retaining Conscription during peacetime.

[2] According to reports in The Times newspaper, the by-election proved largely uneventful and the parties were expecting a small poll.

[5] As a result, the Liberal candidate, Joseph Kenworthy, gained the seat for his party with a majority of 917 over his Coalition Conservative opponent, Lord Eustace Percy.

The result at the following general election in 1922 was; Percy was to find electoral success elsewhere and go on to sit in the Conservative Cabinet of Stanley Baldwin.