Newmarket by-election, 1913

The Newmarket by-election, 1913 was a parliamentary by-election held on 16 May 1913 to fill a vacancy in the United Kingdom House of Commons for the Eastern or Newmarket Division of Cambridgeshire.

The vacancy occurred with the sudden death of the sitting Liberal member of parliament, Sir Charles Day Rose on 20 April 1913. Rose had been MP for Newmarket since 1903, except for a short period in 1910 when the Conservative G H Verrall held the seat. At the previous election, in December 1910, he had been returned with a majority of 399 votes.

Within two days of Rose's death, the Conservatives had selected their candidate for the contest, J. C. Denison-Pender. Denison-Pender was a member of the ruling Conservative-backed Municipal Reform Party on the LCC. He had connections with the Newmarket area through his 1906 marriage to Irene, only child of Ernest de la Rue of Lower Hare Park.

There was speculation that Ernest Tanner, a member of the Saffron Walden borough council and Essex County Council would run for the Liberals, but he declined. On 1 May the High Sheriff of Cambridgeshire received the writ for the by-election, and Denison-Pender began to campaign. He opposed many of the main policies of the Liberal Government, including Irish Home Rule, the Welsh Church Bill and the effects of the National Insurance Act 1911.

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