The seat had become vacant when the constituency's Member of Parliament (MP), Sir Malcolm Stoddart-Scott (23 September 1901 – 15 June 1973), died.
The list below is set out in descending order of the number of votes received at the by-election.
Austick won the by-election, in a seat in which his party had finished third in the 1970 general election.
He was a former assistant to the Conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath and a university lecturer.
After losing the by-election, Hampson was the successful Conservative candidate who re-gained the seat in February 1974.
Simmerson, the Chairman of a body called Democratic Conservatives Against the Common Market, contested the by-election.