Edinburgh South by-election, 1910

The Edinburgh South by-election, 1910 was a parliamentary by-election held for the House of Commons constituency of Edinburgh South in Scotland on 29 April 1910.

The by-election was caused by the appointment of the sitting Liberal MP, Arthur Dewar KC, who was the Solicitor General for Scotland, as a Senator of the College of Justice.

Dewar had first been elected as MP for Edinburgh South in a by-election in June 1899. He lost the seat narrowly at the general election of 1900 but won it back in 1906, holding it in January 1910.

The Liberals first choice for the seat was Dr Edward Parrott. Parrott, a publisher and author, was chairman of the Edinburgh South Liberal Association and also of the Edinburgh United Liberal Committee. At a meeting on 11 April, the local executive of the Liberal Association met to consider who the candidate should be, assuming Dewar was to be appointed to the College of Justice. Parrott asked for 48 hours to think the offer over but turned it down and the committee instead turned to Charles Lyell a 34-year-old professional politician, as their preferred candidate. Lyell had been MP for East Dorset from 1904 till January 1910. During that time he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary. He switched seats in January 1910, leaving the marginal East Dorset to Freddie Guest (Guest had family connections in the county) and taking on instead the usually Unionist seat of Edinburgh West, which he failed to gain.

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