The seat had become vacant in 1961 when the constituency's Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Tony Benn had inherited a hereditary peerage from his father, becoming Viscount Stansgate and ineligible to serve in the House of Commons.
He stood in the 1961 by-election anyway and won 69.5% of the votes, but due to his known ineligibility, the Conservative Party candidate Malcolm St Clair challenged the result and was declared the winner by the election court over Benn's objections.
[2] Marguerite Lloyd was a housekeeper from Kensington, who had once attempted to become a local election candidate sponsored by the General and Municipal Workers Union.
A Mr Elkey of the British Commonwealth Party also arrived at Bristol City Hall in order to nominate himself, but after discovering that Lloyd was on the ballot paper, he decided not to stand.
[4] He introduced new policies during the campaign, including the abolition of all taxation, other than on luxuries, the simplification of spelling, and a switch to driving on the right side of the road.
[6] Lloyd declared that she had no policies, but wanted to thank the city, as she had previously been treated in a local hospital, after falling in the Cheddar Gorge.