John Henry Whitley

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John Henry Whitley (* 1866 in Halifax (West Yorkshire) , † 1935 ) was a British politician of the Liberal Party , speaker of the House of Commons and chairman of the BBC .

Family and career

The son of a weaving mill owner and manufacturer of carding machines , who was also Mayor of Halifax from 1876 to 1877, joined his uncle's spinning mill after finishing school.

Political career

Whitley began his political career in 1900 with the election to the House of Commons. There he represented the interests of the Liberal Party of the Halifax constituency until his resignation in 1928 .

From 1907 to 1910 he was Junior Lord of the Treasury in the Liberal Governments of Prime Ministers Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Herbert Henry Asquith . In 1911 he was appointed a member of the Privy Council (PC). He later became Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.

During the First World War in 1917 he became chairman of a committee to evaluate the rising trade union movements . This gave rise to the proposal to set up formal meetings between workers and employers, known at the time as the Whitley Councils. The National Whitney Council is still responsible for setting salaries in the National Health Service (NHS) .

In 1921 he was appointed to succeed James William Lowther as Speaker of the House of Commons. He held this office until his resignation for health reasons in 1928. Edward FitzRoy became his successor as speaker . Subsequently, Whitley refused the peer dignity offered to him by King George V , thus breaking the tradition that had existed since 1789 that previous speakers were appointed to the hereditary nobility.

Poverty Report on India and Chairman of the BBC

After leaving the House of Commons, he remained politically active and initially became chairman of the Royal Commission for Labor in India , which submitted a report in 1931. This report received widespread attention because it broadly agreed with the criticism of Mahatma Gandhi and others that India's social and industrial problems were due to prevailing poverty. The report also criticized the role played by UK employers in perpetuating these issues. He refused the knighthood of the Order of the Star of India offered to him by King George V for this report , as did the peerage three years earlier.

His friendship with the co-founder of the BBC , John Reith , led to his appointment as chairman of the BBC in 1931 . Under his chairmanship, the first regular shortwave broadcasts began in 1932 , which soon followed on the BBC World Service . He held the office of chairman of the BBC until his death.

His son Oliver Whitley later became a director at the BBC.

Awards

In 1928 he was awarded an honorary doctorate in law ( LLD ) by the University of Leeds .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Honorary graduates ( English ) University of Leeds. Archived from the original on July 21, 2010. Retrieved May 22, 2019.