The seat had become vacant when the Unionist Member of Parliament (MP) Noel Skelton had died at the age of 55 on 22 November 1935, 3 days before being returned posthumously at the 1935 general election.

The Unionists and their Conservative allies were the dominant group in the National Government, whose parties did not usually stand candidates against each other.

The Labour Party, which formed the official opposition at Westminster, fielded David Cleghorn Thomson.

Gibb, who was Regius Professor of Law at Glasgow University, had also contested the seat in the 1935 general election.

[1] However his physical and mental health collapsed later in the year, exacerbated by the death of King George V a week before polling; a sea voyage was recommended to restore his health, and he died at sea in November 1937, triggering another by-election.