Frederick Corfield

Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield ( June 1, 1915 - August 25, 2005 ) was a British lawyer and politician of the Conservative Party who was a member of the House of Commons from 1955 to 1974 and Minister of Aviation Procurement from 1970 to 1971 and then in 1971 and 1972 Minister of Space was.

Life

Military career, World War II and farmer

Corfield was the son of Frederick Alleyne Corfield, a brigadier general in the British Indian Army , and his wife, Mary Graham Vernon. After attending Cheltenham College , he completed military training at the Royal Military Academy Woolwich and in 1935 began his military service with the Royal Artillery . After serving in India from 1935 to 1939 , he was transferred to the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in France in 1939 at the beginning of the Second World War .

In 1940 he was a member of the 51st (Highland) Division and was mentioned in the war diary for his military service ( Mentioned in dispatches ) . During the campaign in the west and the successes of the German armed forces associated with it , however , his infantry division was wiped out and he himself was taken prisoner by the Germans in 1940 . During this continuous to 1945 captivity studied Corfield, the last to Hauptmann was promoted in Kriegsgefangenenlager Oflag IX A / Z in Rotenburg law .

After returning to England in 1945, Corfield was admitted to the Bar ( Inns of Court ) of Middle Temple . First he worked in the legal staff of the British Army (Judge Advocate General) , but ended this activity in 1946 and then worked as a farmer for around ten years. He initially ran his family's farm in Oxfordshire before buying a farm in Gloucestershire .

Member of the House of Commons and Junior Minister

After moving to Gloucestershire Corfield joined the Conservative Party, which nominated him in 1952 as their candidate for the general election on May 26, 1955 in the constituency of South Gloucestershire . This constituency was previously represented by one of the leading thought leaders in the Labor Party and later Secretary of State , Anthony Crosland . In the elections on May 26, 1955, in which Anthony Eden led the Conservative Tories to a second successive election victory, Corfield was able to prevail with 1,726 votes ahead of the new candidate of the Labor Party, Edward SD Bishop.

Immediately after moving into the House of Commons, he submitted a - albeit rejected - legislative initiative (private member's bill) to improve the compensation for compulsory land sales. This reflected his legal knowledge of expropriations as well as urban and rural planning. He was then from 1956 to 1962 secretary of the agricultural committee of his group and between 1957 and 1958 chairman of its sub-committee for small farms. In February 1958, contrary to the advice of the government, he submitted his legislative initiative again. This time, the principles outlined therein became part of the Town and Country Planning Act , passed in 1959 . He held his first government office from January to October 1959 as Parliamentary Private Secretary of Airey Neave , who was Undersecretary of State in the Aviation Ministry until his heart attack .

On July 16, 1962, Prime Minister Harold Macmillan made Corfield Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Local Government Keith Joseph as part of the extensive government reshuffle ( Night of the Long Knives ) and held this position until the end of the term of office of Macmillan's successor Alec Douglas-Home on October 16, 1964. In this role, he dealt in particular with so-called "Rachmanism", a property scandal in London that was marked by protection racket and named after the notorious property speculator Peter Rachman .

Opposition years and ministers in the Heath cabinet

After the defeat of the Tories in the general election of October 15, 1964 , Corfield became a member of the 1922 committee , an association of the backbenchers of the Conservative Party. During the first Labor government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson , he was first opposition spokesman for land and natural resources from 1964 to 1965 and then from 1965 to 1970 opposition spokesman for aviation.

On October 15, 1970 Corfield was appointed by Prime Minister Edward Heath in the newly created office of the Minister for Aviation Supply (Minister for Aviation Supply) in his cabinet , which was abolished on May 1, 1971 and whose tasks were transferred to the Ministry of Defense. He then became Minister of Space on May 1, 1971 (Minister for Aerospace) and held this office until his replacement by Michael Heseltine on April 7, 1972. In this position, he dealt significantly with the inability of the Rolls-Royce Group , the enormous costs in the development of the Rolls-Royce RB211 three-shaft engine for the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar . This eventually led to the nationalization of the company's engine division, which was a major controversy given the Conservative Party's fundamental adherence to free enterprise.

After his discharge by Prime Minister Heath on April 7, 1972, Corfield was beaten to a Knight Bachelor and from then on carried the suffix "Sir". In the general election on February 28, 1974 , Corfield declined to run again because he no longer had any faith in the economic policies of the Heath government.

In 1979 Corfield became a judge (recorder) at the Crown Court , the British criminal court, and worked there until 1987. His marriage to Elizabeth Corfield in 1945 was childless.

Publications

• Corfield On Compensation (1959)
• A Guide To The Community Land Act (1976)

Web links

• Frederick Corfield at Hansard (English)
• Sir Frederick Corfield. Tory minister and scapegoat . In: The Guardian, September 1, 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ACQUISITION OF LAND (ASSESSMENT OF COMPENSATION) BILL . In: Hansard (House of Commons meeting of February 3, 1956)
2. ↑ COMPENSATION (ACQUISITION AND PLANNING) BILL . In: Hansard (lower house meeting of February 21, 1958)