It was held due to the death of the incumbent Conservative MP, John Courtauld.
[1][2] Under the wartime electoral truce between the Coalition government parties, Conservative candidate Lt-Cmr.
[3] Before the outbreak of war, Kidd had been adopted by Chichester Liberal association as their candidate for a general election expected to take place in 1939/40.
[5] The NFU had them address its committee and "having heard the three candidates and asked questions of them, we make no recommendations to our members".
Kidd survived the war and polled third in the 1945 election, taking 1⁄5 of the vote, about half that of 1942, but again enough to keep his deposit.