 On 23 October 1963, four days after becoming Prime Minister, Home disclaimed his earldom and associated lesser peerages. Having been made a knight of the Order of the Thistle in 1962, he was known after stepping down from the Lords as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The safe Unionist seat of Kinross and West Perthshire was vacant, and Douglas-Home was adopted as his party's candidate. Parliament was due to meet on 24 October after the summer recess, but its return was postponed until 12 November pending the by-election. For twenty days Douglas-Home was Prime Minister while a member of neither house of Parliament, a situation without modern precedent. He won the by-election with a majority of 9,328; the Liberal candidate was in second place and Labour in third.
