Viscount Stansgate
Viscount Stansgate , of Stansgate in the County of Essex , is a hereditary British title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom .
The title was created for William Wedgwood Benn in January 1942 . He was a Labor politician and a former Secretary of State for India and Secretary of State for Air .
Since the eldest son of the 1st Viscount had died in World War II, his second-born son Tony Benn inherited the title when he died in 1960. Tony Benn was a Labor MP in the House of Commons at the time and automatically lost that seat when, along with the Viscount title, he inherited the associated seat in the House of Lords (membership in both Houses is not allowed). Since there was no legal way to give up the title of nobility, he ran a campaign for a corresponding change in the law. The campaign was ultimately successful and resulted in the Peerage Act 1963 . This allowed him to renounce the title on July 31, 1963 for life. The title was suspended until his death in 2014 and then passed to his son Stephen Benn .
List of Viscounts Stansgate (1942)
- William Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate (1877–1960)
- Anthony ("Tony") Benn, 2nd Viscount Stansgate (1925–2014) ( title waiver 1963)
- Stephen Benn, 3rd Viscount Stansgate (* 1951)
Title heir ( Heir Apparent ) is the son of the current title holder Daniel Benn (* 1991).