The 1945 Smethwick by-election was a by-election held on 1 October 1945 for the British House of Commons constituency of Smethwick in Staffordshire (now in the West Midlands county). The by-election was caused by the death of the town's newly elected Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP), 63-year-old Alfred Dobbs, who was killed in a car accident on 27 July 1945, only one day after his election at the 1945 general election Apart from some MPs who were elected posthumously, Dobbs remains the United Kingdom's shortest-serving MP.