Richard Wood, Baron Holderness

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Frederick Wood, Baron Holderness PC DL (* 5. October 1920 in London , † 11. August 2002 ) was a British politician of the Conservative Party , who for 29 years member of the House of Commons was, and several times minister and in 1979 as a Life Peer due of the Life Peerages Act 1958 became a member of the House of Lords .

Life

Family origins and World War II

Wood was the third son of Edward Frederick Lindley Wood , who was among other things Viceroy of India between 1926 and 1931 and Foreign Minister in the governments of Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill from 1938 to 1944 and in 1944 became 1st Earl of Halifax .

After attending Eton College , he became an attaché to the staff of Percy Lyham Loraine , who was ambassador to Italy at the time, in February 1940 . After a brief assignment with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry , he became a cadet in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in December 1940 and then began his military service as a lieutenant in the King's Royal Rifle Corps in the spring of 1941 , where he had been involved in combat missions in the Middle since September 1941 East participated. He then took part in the Africa campaign since January 1942 before he fell ill with jaundice , while his second oldest brother, Major Francis Hugh Peter Courtenay Wood, fell on October 26, 1942 at the second battle of El Alamein .

A few weeks ago he was himself on 30 December 1942 a bomb attack by dive bombers of the Luftwaffe so badly injured that both legs are amputated had. In the following years he received prostheses, the use of which he presented in veterans homes in the USA .

Member of the House of Commons

After returning to Great Britain in 1945, he began studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at the New College of the University of Oxford . At this time he began his commitment to people with disabilities and in particular advocated better support for the 40,000 former soldiers who had been amputated and their families. During his studies he began his political engagement and ran for the student council together with Tony Benn .

In the general election on February 23, 1950 , Wood was elected as a candidate for the Conservative Party in the Bridlington constituency for the first time as a member of the House of Commons. In his first election he was able to prevail with 26,124 votes (50.9%) clearly against the candidate of the Liberal Party George Wadsworth , who only got 16,158 votes (31.5%). He represented the constituency for over 29 years until he decided not to run again in the general election on May 3, 1979 .

Junior minister

After the Conservative Tories won the general election on October 25, 1951 , Wood became Private Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Pensions, Derick Heathcoat-Amory . He then remained between 1953 and 1955 Parliamentary Private Secretary of Derick Heathcoat-Amory, who was first Minister of State in the Board of Trade and then Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from October 1954 .

After he returned in 1955 in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, where he remained until 1958 as Parliamentary Joint Secretary ( Joint Parliamentary Secretary ) one of the closest aides of Prime Minister John Boyd-Carpenter was. In 1958 he moved to the Ministry of Labor and Military Service as Parliamentary Secretary and, as such, was part of the advisory group of then Minister Iain MacLeod until 1959 .

minister

Macmillan and Douglas-Home governments

On October 14, 1959, Wood was appointed Minister of Power by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to succeed Percy Mills, 1st Baron Mills , but was not a member of the Cabinet like his predecessor. In 1959 he also became Privy Councilor .

As Minister of Energy, he was responsible for the coal, gas and electricity industries. His term of office, which lasted until his replacement by Frederick Erroll on October 20, 1963, was marked by far-reaching changes. There was a decline in the demand for coal and the National Union of Mineworkers was concerned about competition with the oil industry. Because of his left-wing views within the conservative Tories, he had the confidence of the increasingly militant union officials. On the other hand, the appointment he made of Alfred Robens , who represented the Blyth constituency as a member of the House of Commons for the Labor Party , as chairman of the National Coal Board in 1961 met with massive criticism from some conservative backbenchers .

At that time, Wood, the University of Sheffield in 1962 an Honorary Doctorate of Law (Hon. LL.D.) gave, also responsible for the construction of nuclear power plants and the construction of new high-voltage lines, as well as for the opening of the oil tanker terminal for the oil refinery in Milford Haven and planning a network for oil pipelines covering large areas of England. At the same time there were wages increases of 2.5% in 1962.

After the resignation of Prime Minister Macmillan, he was succeeded by Alec Douglas-Home on October 21, 1963 as Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, succeeding Niall Macpherson . He held this minister until the end of the reign of Douglas Home after the defeat in the general election on October 15, 1964 . In his work as minister he was assisted by Margaret Thatcher and Lynch Maydon .

In 1962 he was made Honorary Colonel of the Queen's Royal Rifles and in 1967 of the 4th Volunteer Battalion of the Royal Green Jackets . He also became Deputy Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire in 1967 .

Heath government

When, after almost six years of opposition, the Conservative Tories were able to re-elect Edward Heath as Prime Minister after winning the general election on June 18, 1970 , Richard Wood became Minister for Overseas Development in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Affairs of the Commonwealth of Nations ( Foreign and Commonwealth Office ). The ministerial office he held until the end of Heath's tenure on March 7, 1974 after the election defeat in the general election on February 28, 1974 .

In December 1974 Wood was named as a possible successor to Edward Heath as chairman of the Conservative Party, but renounced an actual candidacy, so that Margaret Thatcher was party chairman in 1975.

After leaving government, he took on roles in the private sector and served on the Hargreaves Group's Board of Directors from 1974 to 1986 and on the Humberside Regional Board of Lloyds Banking Group from 1981 to 1990 . In 1978 the University of Leeds awarded him another honorary doctorate in law, as did the University of Hull in 1982 .

House of Lords

By a letters patent dated August 7, 1979, Wood was raised to the nobility on the basis of the Life Peerages Act 1958 after his retirement from the House of Commons as a life peer with the title Baron Holderness , of Bishop Wilton in the County of Humberside and belonged to on his death as a member of the House of Lords. His official introduction ( Introduction ) as a member of the House of Lords took place on November 14, 1979 with the support of Nathaniel Fiennes, 21st Baron Saye and Sele and Peter Carington, 6th Baron Carrington . During his tenure in the House of Lords, he was a member of numerous committees and commissions.

Because of his own disability, Wood became involved in some organizations for the disabled and was President of the Queen Elizabeth Foundation for the Disabled between 1983 and 1996 and Chairman of the Disablement Services Authority from 1987 to 1991 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 35091, HMSO, London, February 28, 1941, p. 1282 ( PDF , accessed December 20, 2013, English).
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 47922, HMSO, London, August 9, 1979, p. 10099 ( PDF , accessed December 20, 2013, English).
  3. ↑ Lord Holderness in the Hansard (English)
personal data
SURNAME Wood, Richard, Baron Holderness
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wood, Richard Frederick, Baron Holderness (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Conservative Party politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH October 5, 1920
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH August 11, 2002