The by-election was held due to the incumbent Liberal Unionist MP, Charles Howard, becoming the tenth Earl of Carlisle.
The Brampton railway began in 1775 as a wooden wagonway from Tindale Fell Colliery to Brampton Coal Staithe constructed by the Earl of Carlisle.
The pier was built between 1855 and 1859 and was named after the Earl of Carlisle, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
He married as his first wife Bridget Helen Monckton, 11th Lady Ruthven of Freeland (see the Lord Ruthven of Freeland for earlier history of this title).
He was a major inspiration to the artists known as the Macchiaioli, and also had many English and American friends and followers, notably Elihu Vedder, Matthew Ridley Corbet (1850–1902) and his wife Edith Corbet, and Lord Carlisle, and was closely associated with Corot and the Barbizon school, whom he met while visiting Paris.
At Castle Howard, the Earl of Carlisle had obtained The Adoration of the Kings previously created for the Grandmontines, which throws together some thirty figures on an architectural background, varied in detail, massive in shape and fanciful in ornament.
Earl of Carlisle, a title that has been created three times in the Peerage of England
She entertained artists and writers there in addition to such notables of the time as the Earl of Carlisle and his daughter, Lady Dorothy Howard (Notman "Some Authors," "Talks").
Carlisle | James Earl Jones | Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex | Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma | Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener | Carlisle, Pennsylvania | Carlisle, Cumbria | Earl | Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts | Earl of Derby | Earl Warren | Earl of Pembroke | Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Warwick | Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford | Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby | Earl of Shrewsbury | William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham | Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester | Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick | Earl of Leicester | John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon | Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex | Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester | Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer | Earl of Devon | Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig | Carlisle United F.C. | My Name Is Earl | Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon |
The Bishop of Durham subscribed £150, the Earl of Carlisle £200, and so on, down to collections from workmen and the militia.
His senior descendants, the Dukes of Norfolk, have been Earls Marshal and Premier Peers of England since the 17th century, and male-line descendants hold the Earldoms of Carlisle, Suffolk, Berkshire and Effingham.