The seat had become vacant on the death of the constituency's Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), Sir Reginald Clarry, on 17 January 1945, aged 62.
The Conservative Party selected as its candidate Ronald Bell, an Oxford-educated barrister who had been defeated at the Caerphilly by-election in 1939.
[1] In keeping with a war-time electoral pact, the Labour and Liberal parties did not field candidates, and Bell's only opponent was Robert Edwards, the Chairman of the Independent Labour Party (ILP).
The date of the general election was announced on 23 May, and Parliament was dissolved on 15 June.
He returned to the House of Commons at the 1950 general election as MP for South Buckinghamshire.