Bury St Edmunds by-election, 1944

The Bury St Edmunds by-election, 1944 was a parliamentary by-election for the British House of Commons constituency of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk on 29 February 1944.

The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting Conservative MP, Frank Heilgers who was killed in the Ilford rail crash on 16 January 1944. A local man, he had been MP here since holding the seat in 1931.

Bury St Edmunds had been won by the Conservatives at every election since the seat was created in 1885 and was a safe seat. So safe was it that Heilgers was returned unopposed in 1931 and 1935.

The local Conservatives selected 39-year-old Edgar Keatinge. Keatinge served in the Royal Artillery. He commanded a mountain battery of the West African Frontier Force, and became the first commander of the West African Artillery School. When, after serious illness, he returned to Suffolk in 1943, he was again attached to the Suffolk Yeomanry, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He had been a member of West Suffolk County Council since 1933, and was selected in 1938 as the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate for the Isle of Ely constituency, to stand against Liberal MP James de Rothschild. The parties had expected a general election in late 1939, but it was postponed for the duration of the war.

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