title: 1968 Kensington South by-election
text: # 1968 Kensington South by-election
  
  The 1968 Kensington South by-election by-election was held in the Kensington South constituency of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 14 March 1968. The election was to fill a vacancy in the seat formerly held by Conservative MP William Roots, who resigned from Parliament in 1968 due to ill health.
  
  The seat was considered a safe seat for the Conservatives ('as safe and solid as the red-brick Victorian blocks of flats', wrote the Times); at the 1966 general election Roots was elected with 65.1 percent of the vote and a majority of 14,631. Turnout was expected to be low as the constituency had a large transient population living in bedsits and flats.
  
  The Conservative Sir Brandon Rhys-Williams, a management consultant, won the seat with 75.5 percent of the vote and a slightly reduced majority (13,747) on a much reduced turnout. The Liberal candidate Thomas Kellock, a QC who had fought the seat at the previous general election, came in a distant second, with Labour candidate Clive Bradley, a barrister and journalist, forced into third place and losing his deposit. There were two independent candidates who received the fewest votes: Sinclair Eustace, 37, a teacher of phonetics and a campaigner against aircraft noise, described by The Times as 'perhaps the most civilized and likeable' of all the candidates but with a platform very close to that of the Liberal Party; and William Gold, 45, an engineer and 'a Buddhist, anti-vivisectionist, periodic vegetarian and author of at least six unpublished novels' who had only just returned to the UK after living in Australia.
  
  ## Results
  
  By-Election 14 March 1968: Kensington South :
  
  | Party | Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% |
  | - | - | - | - | - | - |
  | | Conservative | Brandon Rhys-Williams | 16,489 | 75.5 | +10.4 |
  | | Liberal | Thomas Kellock | 2,742 | 12.6 | -2.5 |
  | | Labour | Clive Bradley | 1,874 | 8.6 | -11.2 |
  | | Independent | Sinclair Eustace | 675 | 3.1 | New |
  | | Independent | William Gold | 59 | 0.3 | New |
  | Majority | Majority | Majority | 13,747 | 62.9 | +17.8 |
  | Turnout | Turnout | Turnout | 21,839 | 40.0 | -18.1 |
  | | Conservative hold | Conservative hold | Swing | | |
  