North East Derbyshire by-election, 1914

The North East Derbyshire by-election was a Parliamentary by-election. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post voting system. About a third of the electorate were directly involved in the mining industry. This was the penultimate by-election to take place before the outbreak of the First World War. It demonstrated the weakness of support for the Labour party in 1914 when opposed by a Liberal party candidate.

The by-election was caused by the death of the sitting MP, W. E. Harvey on 28 April 1914 of pneumonia. He had represented the seat since 1907 when he was elected as a Liberal.

Harvey was a senior figure within the Derbyshire Miners Association and also prominent in the Miners Federation of Great Britain. However, in 1909, when the latter body determined to instruct all sponsored miners MPs to take the Labour party whip, Harvey was forced to change his political allegiance. He was re-elected as a Labour candidate in both 1910 General Elections when the Liberal party decided not to put up a separate candidate and instead to support Harvey. At the last general election, he was comfortably returned;

The Liberal campaign was dealt an early blow when their Constituency Organiser, Samuel Short, who would have been their By-election Agent, died.

Given that a third of the electorate were directly involved in the mining industry, issues affecting the industry should have dominated the campaign. However the issues surrounding the selection of Martin caused a falling out between the Liberal and Labour parties that cast a shadow over other issues. For the Labour Party, this seemed like an ideal situation to take on the Liberal Party over the issue of miners representation. Their candidate had the official backing of the local miners association and their Liberal opponent was one of bosses the union dealt with.

John Houfton attended the national Liberal Council meeting where he gave a speech about the by-election, in an effort to rally Liberal support from outside the constituency.

On the 14 May nominations closed to confirm that the election would be a three-cornered contest.

The Liberal campaign issued a leaflet entitled 'The Houfton Herald' which presented the issues in national politics in clear and emphatic language.

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