Robert Grant-Ferris, Baron Harvington

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Robert Grant Grant-Ferris, Baron Harvington PC Kt (birth name: Robert Grant Ferris ; born December 30, 1907 , † January 1, 1997 ) was a British Conservative Party politician who was a member of the House of Commons for 27 years with interruptions 1974 when Life Peer became a member of the House of Lords under the Life Peerages Act 1958 .

Life

Degree, lawyer, pilot and local politician

Robert Grant Ferris, son of a Roman Catholic general practitioner , grew up on the family estate Falcon Hill in Cotteridge , Birmingham and completed his education at the Douai School in Woolhampton, operated by the Benedictines of Douai Abbey . After finishing school, he worked for a real estate agent and began studying law in 1932, graduating in 1937 with admission to the Inner Temple Bar Association ( Inns of Court ) .

In the early 1930s he began his political career for the conservative Tories in local politics when he was elected a member of the Birmingham City Council in 1933 . At the same time he joined the Auxiliary Air Force Squadron of Warwickshire in 1933 , and trained there as a pilot .

Member of the House of Commons

In the general election on November 15, 1935 , he ran for the Conservative Party in the constituency of Wigan , but suffered a heavy defeat against the constituency holder of the Labor Party , John Parkinson : While Parkinson received 27,950 votes (61.3 percent), he himself only came up 17,646 votes (38.7 percent).

When his party colleague Ian Fraser his parliamentary seat after his appointment as governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation resigned (BBC) on 14 January 1937, he was the General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War, supported at a by-election ( by-election ) in the constituency St Pancras North elected for the first time as a member of the House of Commons on February 4, 1937, but was only just able to prevail with 11,744 votes against the opponent of the Labor Party, who got 11,476 votes. He represented the constituency until his defeat in the general election on July 5, 1945 .

Second World War and loss of his mandate in 1945

At the beginning of the Second World War he was a captain ( flight lieutenant ) in 1939 and commanded flight operations of his squadron in France , Malta , Egypt and India . In 1941 he was promoted to lieutenant colonel ( wing commander ).

Effective August 1, 1942, Robert Grant Ferris changed his name to Robert Grant Grant-Ferris.

At the end of the Second World War he withdrew from active military service in order to devote himself more to his parliamentary activities. At the same time, he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Town and Country Planning , William Morrison , in 1944 , and held this office until the end of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's tenure on July 26, 1945.

In the national success of the Labor Party in the general election of July 5, 1945, Grant-Ferris suffered a dramatic defeat in his constituency of St Pancras North : While he received 9,108 votes (34.7 percent) and thus lost 15.9 percentage points, his challenger came from the Labor Party, George House , to 16,738 votes (63.8 percent) and conquered the constituency.

Grant-Ferris then temporarily retired from politics to concentrate on his work as a farmer and as director of the Burns, Oates and Washburne publishing house . At the same time he became deputy chairman of the board of the Roman Catholic weekly newspaper The Tablet in 1945 and held this position until shortly before his death.

Although there was a by-election in the constituency of St Pancras North after the death of George House on March 10, 1949 , he was not nominated for candidacy. In the subsequent general election on February 23, 1950 and October 25, 1951 , he ran for the Conservative Tories in the constituency of Central Wandsworth , but was defeated by his opponent from the Labor Party, Richard Adams , with 27,582 votes (48.5 percent) 25,533 votes (45 percent) in the 1950 elections and 28,844 votes (51 percent) to 27,661 votes (49 percent) in the 1951 general election.

Grant-Ferris devoted himself for many years the sheep on his property Northwood Farm in Petworth , Sussex , and was three times from 1950 to 1952, 1959 to 1960 and most recently in 1973 President of the English Society of Southdown sheep ( Southdown Sheep Society of England ) . He was also President of the National Sheep Breeders of Britain between 1956 and 1958, and Vice President in 1963 and President of the Smithfield Club in 1970 .

The devout Catholic was also the secret chamberlain of the sword and mantle of Popes Pius XII. , John XXIII. and Paul VI. and spent a week in the presence of the Pope every year. His strong rejection of abortion was largely shaped by his close relationship with the Holy See and the Papal States. In 1949 he became Magistral Knight and in 1953 Magistral Grand Cross Knight of the Order of Malta .

Re-election in the lower house in 1955 and deputy lower house speaker

Finally, Grant-Ferris was re-elected as a member of the House of Commons in the general election on May 26, 1955 in the newly created constituency of Nantwich , and was a member of this until he renounced the general election on February 28, 1974 . In his first election he achieved a clear absolute majority of 61.1 percent with 20,250 votes and was also able to assert himself clearly in the subsequent lower house elections - albeit no longer with an absolute majority.

During his membership in the House of Commons this time, he became a member of the Committee of Chairs, who chair the standing committees of the House of Commons, in 1962.

In 1963 he also became chairman of the management of the St. John's Wood- based Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth and held this position until 1970. He was also a sustained advocate for the waterways of Great Britain and was elected one of the vice-presidents of the Inland Waterways Association in 1966 . He was also chairman of the non-partisan waterways committee.

Shortly after the general election of June 18, 1970 , Grant-Ferris, who was beaten to a Knight Bachelor degree on January 1, 1969 and then had the suffix "Sir", became Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons on July 2, 1970 ) and to succeed Sydney Irving as Chairman of the influential Committee on Ways and Means . He held these functions until he left the House of Commons in February 1974 and was replaced by George Thomas .

After the previous Speaker of the House of Commons , Horace King , was raised to the nobility on March 2, 1971 as Baron Maybray-King, of the City of Southampton and consequently left the House of Commons, he was seen as a possible successor in the office of Speaker of the House of Commons . However, the conservative majority faction preferred the former Lord Seal Keeper and Leader of the House of Commons , Selwyn Lloyd , in this role. Grant-Ferris remained Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons.

House of Lords

Although Grant-Ferris, who also became Privy Councilor on June 12, 1971 , was not on the so-called Dissolution Honors of the outgoing government of Prime Minister Edward Heath after the Tories were defeated in the general election of February 28, 1974, he was short then to the fifteen people nominated for a life peerage by the new Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson . He was also the only one of those fifteen people without a Labor Party membership.

Grave of Robert Grant-Ferris, Baron Harvington

By a letters patent dated June 24, 1974 Grant-Ferris was finally raised as a life peer with the title Baron Harvington , of Nantwich in the County of Cheshire, to the nobility and was thus a member of the House of Lords until his death. At the time of his death he had served in the UK Parliament for around fifty years .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Joshua Levine: Forgotten Voices of the Blitz and the Battle For Britain: A New History in the Words of the Men and Women on Both Sides , 2010, ISBN 1-40903-4-089 , p. 304
  2. ↑ London Gazette . No. 35689, HMSO, London, September 1, 1942, p. 3846 ( PDF , accessed October 16, 2013, English).
  3. ↑ Entry on the homepage of the Inland Waterways Association
  4. ↑ London Gazette . No. 44894, HMSO, London, July 11, 1969, p. 7213 ( PDF , accessed October 16, 2013, English).
  5. ↑ Dominic Sandbrook: State of Emergency: The Way We Were: Britain, 1970-1974 , 2010, ISBN 0-24195-6-919
  6. ^ London Gazette  (Supplement). No. 45384, HMSO, London, June 4, 1971, p. 5957 ( PDF , accessed October 16, 2013, English).
  7. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46334, HMSO, London, June 28, 1974, p. 7420 ( PDF , accessed October 16, 2013, English).
personal data
SURNAME Grant-Ferris, Robert, Baron Harvington
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robert Grant Ferris (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician, member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH December 30, 1907
DATE OF DEATH January 1, 1997