The 1919 St Albans by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in England in December 1919 for the House of Commons constituency of St Albans in Hertfordshire. It was the first contested parliamentary election in St Albans since before World War I. Since the previous contest, in 1910, boundaries had been changed and the franchise extended. The Coalition Unionists (i.e. Conservatives) held the seat, but by only a narrow margin over the Labour Party, even though Labour had existed in the area for less than 12 months, and St Albans had previously been a Conservative safe seat. Vacancy The by-election was held to fill the vacancy caused when the 67-year-old Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) Sir Hildred Carlile resigned from the House of Commons on 20 November 1919 by the procedural device of accepting appointment as Steward of the Manor of Northstead. Carlile, who had held the seat since the 1906 general election (and was returned unopposed in 1918), cited ill-health as the reason for his departure from politics. Electoral history The result at the last General Election in 1918 was; The previous election was contested and produced this result: Candidates The Conservative Party selected as its candidate 47-year-old Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Fremantle, who had previously been adopted as the party's candidate for the next general election, when Hildred Carlile was expected to retire. Fremantle was an army doctor who had served in the Second Boer War and in World War I, and had been a member of the London County Council since March 1919. The son of a Dean of Ripon, he had been a medical officer for Hertfordshire for 14 years. Early reports suggested that the Liberal Party candidate would be a Major Conacher from New Barnet, but in the event the Liberals nominated Milner Gray, a company director who had stood unsuccessfully in Wellingborough at the 1918 general election. The Labour Party candidate was John W. Brown, the secretary of the Shipping Clerks' Guild. The Times reported on 28 November that there was "possibility, but not a probability" of a fourth candidate, from the right-wing National Party, but this did not materialise. Nominations closed on 2 December, with polling set for 10 December. Electorate The old parliamentary borough of St Albans, which returned two MPs, had been disenfranchised in 1852 after a Royal Commission had found proof of extensive bribery. Deprived of its independent representation, the borough had