The Armagh by-election was held on 20 November 1954, following the resignation of Ulster Unionist Party

Ulster Unionist Party

The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 James Harden

James Harden (politician)

Major James Richard Edwards Harden DSO MC , known as Richard Harden, was a Northern Irish politician...

.

Harden had held the seat of Armagh

Armagh (UK Parliament constituency)

Armagh or County Armagh was a Parliamentary Constituency in the House of Commons. It was replaced in boundary changes in 1983.The Act of Union 1800 provided for the Parliament of Ireland to be merged with the Parliament of Great Britain, to form the Parliament of the United Kingdom...

 since a by-election in 1948

Armagh by-election, 1948

The Armagh by-election was held on 5 March 1948, following the death of Ulster Unionist Party Member of Parliament William Allen.Allen had held the seat of Armagh since its recreation for the 1922 UK general election...

, and had not faced a contest since then. The seat had been held continually by Ulster Unionists since its recreation for the 1922 UK general election.

Candidates

The Ulster Unionists stood C. W. Armstrong

C. W. Armstrong

Colonel Christopher Wyborne Armstrong was a politician from Northern Ireland. He was Ulster Unionist Member of Parliament for Armagh from a by-election in 1954 until he stood down at the 1959 general election....

, the son of former Mid Armagh

Mid Armagh (UK Parliament constituency)

Mid Armagh was a constituency in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was created by the Redistribution of Seats Act for the 1885 general election and returned one Member of Parliament until it was abolished with effect from the 1922 general election....

 MP Henry Bruce Armstrong

Henry Bruce Armstrong

Henry Bruce Wright Armstrong was a Northern Irish barrister and politician, Unionist MP for Mid Armagh from January 1921 until 1922....

. He had served in the British Army and been involved in the oil industry in Burma, serving from 1940 to 1942 in that country's House of Representatives.

The two main opposition groups, the Northern Ireland Labour Party

Northern Ireland Labour Party

The Northern Ireland Labour Party was an Irish political party which operated from 1924 until 1987.In 1913 the British Labour Party resolved to give the recently formed Irish Labour Party exclusive organising rights in Ireland...

 and the Nationalist Party

Nationalist Party (Northern Ireland)

The Nationalist Party† - was the continuation of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and was formed after partition, by the Northern Ireland-based members of the IPP....

, had both fared poorly at the Northern Ireland general election, 1953

Northern Ireland general election, 1953

-References:*...

, and decided not to contest the by-election.

Result

With only one candidate for the seat, Armstrong was declared elected unopposed. This was the last unopposed election in any Westminster seat. Armstrong held the seat until the 1959 UK general election, when he stood down.