William Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate

William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate

William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate PC DSO DFC (born May 10, 1877 in Hackney (now London ), † November 17, 1960 in London) was a British politician.

Life

Benn in 1919

Benn was born in Hackney in 1877 to publisher and politician John Williams Benn, 1st Baronet and his wife Elizabeth Pickston . He completed his training at the Lycée Condorcet in Paris and the University College London . After Benn first followed in his father's footsteps as a politician, he followed his military interests in 1912 and joined the Middlesex Yeomanry .

In 1920, Benn married Margaret Eadie Holmes . Her eldest son Michael Julius (1921–1944) embarked on a military career and died in World War II . Their second son Anthony (1925-2014) followed his father and became a respected politician himself. After the birth of her third son David Julian (* 1928) Margaret went through a fourth pregnancy, but the baby died in childbirth. William Benn died in London on November 17, 1960.

Military background

During the First World War , Benn took part in the Battle of Gallipoli and later joined the Air Force. Here Benn was involved in the bombing of the Baghdad Railway . He later commanded a force of French seamen who acted like guerrillas in Turkey . Benn was then transferred to Italy to work with the Italian forces to organize the first parachute jump of Secret Service agents behind enemy lines. He personally took part in the operation. His life has been saved twice after drifting on a sinking plane and ship in the Mediterranean Sea. Benn was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his military achievements . Italy awarded him the Bronze Medal of Bravery and the War Merit Cross. Most recently, Benn was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in France . With the outbreak of World War II, Benn rejoined the Air Force and ended his military career with the rank of Air Commodore .

Political career

Benn's father had served as a member of the House of Commons as a member of the Liberal Party . In the general election in 1892 he won the mandate of the London constituency of St George and in the by-elections in 1904 the mandate of the constituency of Devonport . In the 1906 general election , William Benn succeeded his father and ran for the constituency of St George. This was previously held by the conservative Thomas Dewar , against whose successor H. Hallifax Wells Benn was able to prevail with a share of the vote of 61.3%. In the elections in January 1910 , he defended his mandate despite losing votes. Due to his appointment as a member of the Lords of the Treasury in the same year, by-elections were required in the constituency of St George, which Benn, like the elections in December 1910 , won. During the First World War, he was offered the position of Whip of the Liberals in Parliament, which Benn rejected, however, in favor of the deployment of Italy.

Before the general election in 1918 Benn's constituency was dissolved and he stood for the Liberal Party in the Scottish constituency of Leith , whose mandate he won and defended in the subsequent general elections in 1922 , 1923 and 1924 . After Benn had long since approached the politics of the Labor Party , he left the Liberal Party in 1927 and joined the Labor Party. He saw the need to check the support of voters after this change, so that by-elections were held in Leith that same year. However, the Labor Party did not put Benn up for this, but gave preference to Robert Freeman Wilson , who had already run twice without success. To get the majority, Wilson was missing 111 votes and the mandate went to Alfred Ernest Brown of the Liberal Party, who held it until 1945.

After the death of Labor MP Frank Rose , by-elections were required in the Aberdeen North constituency in 1928, to which the Labor Party put up Benn. Despite losing votes, Benn won the majority and moved into the British House of Commons for the Labor Party for the first time. The following year he was appointed Minister for India to succeed William Peel . He was also raised to the Privy Council that same year . As Minister for India, Benn was responsible for the imprisonment of Gandhi as a result of the Salt March . The general election in 1931 was disastrous for Benn. Compared to the 1929 elections , he lost 36.3% of his votes and thus his mandate to the unionist John George Burnett . After an unsuccessful candidacy in the constituency of Dudley , he succeeded in 1937 to move back into the House of Commons for the constituency of Manchester Gorton . In January 1942 Benn was installed as the 1st Viscount Stansgate and thus automatically a member of the House of Lords . Between 1943 and 1944, Benn was Vice President of the Allied Control Commission in Italy. In 1945 Benn was installed as Minister of Aviation , making the British Air Force subordinate to him. He held this position until 1946. The following year Benn was elected President of the Interparliamentary Union and held this position until his death.

Web links

Commons : William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

• William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate at Hansard (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate on thepeerage.com , accessed July 21, 2015.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Information on Benn's life
3. ↑ Information on William Benn
4. ^ Results of the two lower house elections in 1910
5. ^ Results of the general election in 1918
6. ^ WH Fraser, ME Smith, J. Naughtie: Aberdeen, 1800-2000: A New History , Tuckwell Press, 2000, pp. 230-231. ISBN 978-1-86232-108-3
7. ↑ Results of the general election in 1931 ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.