The Lord Brooke of Cumnor | |
|---|---|
 Brooke in 1950 | |
| Shadow Home Secretary | |
| In office 16 October 1964 – 29 October 1964 | |
| Leader | Alec Douglas-Home |
| Preceded by | George Brown |
| Succeeded by | Edward Boyle |
| Home Secretary | |
| In office 14 July 1962 – 16 October 1964 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan Alec Douglas-Home |
| Preceded by | Rab Butler |
| Succeeded by | Frank Soskice |
| Chief Secretary to the Treasury | |
| In office 9 October 1961 – 14 July 1962 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | John Boyd-Carpenter |
| Minister of Housing, Local Government and Welsh Affairs | |
| In office 13 January 1957 – 9 October 1961 | |
| Prime Minister | Harold Macmillan |
| Preceded by | Duncan Sandys |
| Succeeded by | Charles Hill |
| Financial Secretary to the Treasury | |
| In office 28 July 1954 – 13 January 1957 | |
| Prime Minister | Winston Churchill Anthony Eden |
| Preceded by | John Boyd-Carpenter |
| Succeeded by | Enoch Powell |
| Member of Parliament forHampstead | |
| In office 23 February 1950 – 10 March 1966 | |
| Preceded by | Charles Challen |
| Succeeded by | Ben Whitaker |
| Member of Parliament forLewisham West | |
| In office 24 November 1938 – 15 June 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Philip Dawson |
| Succeeded by | Arthur Skeffington |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1903-04-09)9 April 1903 Oxford, England |
| Died | 29 March 1984(1984-03-29) (aged 80) Mildenhall,Wiltshire, England |
| Political party | Conservative |
| Spouse | The Baroness Brooke of Ystradfellte |
| Alma mater | Balliol College, Oxford |
Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor,CH, PC (9 April 1903 – 29 March 1984) was a BritishConservative Party politician who served asChief Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General from 1961 to 1962 and — following the "Night of the Long Knives" — asHome Secretary from 1962 to 1964.[1]
Brooke was born inOxford,[2] the son of artistLeonard Leslie Brooke and Sybil Diana (née Brooke), daughter of Irish churchmanStopford Augustus Brooke.[3] He was educated atMarlborough College, where he was a classmate ofRab Butler, andBalliol College, Oxford. He had an elder brother, 2nd Lt. Leonard Stopford Brooke, who was killed in Germany in 1918 while serving with theArmy Cyclist Corps.[1][3]
After teaching philosophy at Balliol College for a year, Brooke worked at aQuaker settlement for the unemployed in theRhondda Valley from 1927 to 1928. This experience led him to turn down the offer of a Fellowship in philosophy at Balliol in favour of a lifetime in politics. After a year onThe Economist, Brooke became one of the original members, and subsequently Deputy Chairman, of theConservative Research Department (1929–1937) under the chairmanship ofNeville Chamberlain.[4] The impetus for the pre-war "special areas" legislation was derived from his unsigned articles on "Places without a Future" which he wrote forThe Times in 1934.[5]
He was elected as a ConservativeMember of Parliament (MP) forLewisham West in a 1938by-election. He spoke at the request of theWhips in support of Chamberlain in the debate of May 1940, just before the prime minister's fall from power,[6] and Brooke himself was defeated in the1945 general election. The next year he was elected to theLondon County Council, and served as Conservative leader on the council until 1951, continuing to serve on the Council and theHampstead borough council until 1955. In 1949, he led the Conservative party on the London County Council to the brink of seizing power for only the third time in its history.[7] From 1946 to 1948, he served as the final deputy chairman of theSouthern Railway, before it was nationalised.[8]
In 1952 during theBritish Malayan headhunting scandal, Brooke wrote to the Colonial Office concerning a concerned constituent that had shown him leaked photographs published by theDaily Worker depicting British troops in theMalayan Emergency posing with severed heads.[9]
Brooke returned to parliament in 1950 as MP forHampstead, and enteredWinston Churchill's government in 1954 asFinancial Secretary to the Treasury, serving underRab Butler andHarold Macmillan when they were Chancellors of the Exchequer.[10]
He continued in this job until 1957, when he becameMinister of Housing and Local Government[11] andMinister of Welsh Affairs in theMacmillan government, entering the Cabinet. In the former job, he was the main driving force behind making London a smokeless zone.[12] He attracted controversy when steering the Rent Bill through Parliament after it had already secured a Second Reading in theHouse of Commons under his predecessors.[13] In the latter job, he caused anger throughout Wales through his crucial support of Liverpool Council's bid to secure Westminster's approval of an Act of Parliament toflood Cwm Tryweryn in Meirionydd, thereby by-passing Welsh local authority opposition to the scheme. However, largely in response to the protests over Tryweryn, he subsequently attracted investment to Wales, including such projects as the Severn Bridge, the steelworks at Llanwern, and the Heads of the Valleys Road. In 1961 he became the firstChief Secretary to the Treasury in modern times.[14]
In 1962, he reached his highest level in government, becomingHome Secretary followingHarold Macmillan's "Night of the Long Knives" when many senior ministers were sacked. AsHome Secretary, Brooke was not particularly successful, and his actions caused controversy on several occasions, including his response to the noisy demonstrations against thestate visit byKing Paul andQueen Frederica of Greece.[15]
In his obituary inThe Times,[16] the author wrote: "His tenure of this difficult post was not a particularly happy one, and although his integrity and fairness were generally admired, there was a feeling in some quarters that he lacked the sensitiveness and flexibility required in the handling of difficult individual cases." In theDictionary of National Biography,[17] Lord Blake wrote that Brooke had to take a number of decisions in the field of immigration and deportation which infuriated libertarians, and that he seemed to display a certain insensitivity in these cases – an impression enhanced by his somewhat pedantic way of speech.
He was plunged into controversy at the very beginning of his term of office because of his initial reaction to the case of Carmen Bryan.[18] Bryan was a 22-year-old Jamaican woman and first offender, who pleaded guilty to petty larceny (shoplifting goods worth £2) and was recommended fordeportation byPaddingtonmagistrates. Brooke's acquiescence to thecourt order and her six-week detention inHolloway Prison pending deportation was seen[by whom?] as both unnecessary and unjust. Neitherbail nor the opportunity for her toappeal were offered directly to her. Standing firm, Brooke told theHouse of Commons, "I think it would be a great act of injustice if I were to stand in the way of her returning to Jamaica. I am not prepared to look at this case again". However, criticism in Parliament and in the media combined to force a speedy review where, four days later, Brooke recanted, freeing Bryan and allowing her to remain. Deportations for misdemeanours were subsequently suspended. There had been more than eighty recommendations for deportation in the seven weeks following theConservative Government's introduction of theCommonwealth Immigrants Act (1962).[citation needed]
Brooke was one of many politicians to receive unprecedented criticism onThat Was The Week That Was onBBC Television in 1962–63, which called him "the most hated man in Britain" and ended a mock profile of him with the phrase "If you're Home Secretary, you can get away with murder".[19] He was also involved in the passage of various new anti-drug laws, including ones banning possession ofamphetamines and the growing ofcannabis. As the final arbiter in death penalty cases he was the last Home Secretary to allow death sentences to go ahead for themurder of John Alan West.[20]
SirAlec Douglas-Home kept Brooke in office as Home Secretary when he became Prime Minister in October 1963, and his last 12 months in office, which saw the introduction of the Police Act 1964 and the creation of a Royal Commission on Crime and Punishment, attracted much less controversy.[21]
Brooke went into opposition following the Conservative defeat in1964, and he lost his seat in the subsequent election in1966. Having been appointed to theOrder of the Companions of Honour as a Member (CH) in 1964,[22] he was created alife peer asBaron Brooke of Cumnor, ofCumnor in the Royal County ofBerks on 20 July 1966,[23] and acted as a Conservative front bench spokesman in the House of Lords until 1970. The onset ofParkinson's disease then led him to retire gradually from public life.[8]
Brooke marriedBarbara Muriel, daughter of the ReverendAlfred Mathews, in 1933.[8] As she was made alife peer, too, they were one of the few couples who both held titles in their own right. The couple had four children:
Lord Brooke of Cumnor died fromParkinson's disease at his home inMildenhall, Wiltshire, on 29 March 1984, aged 80.[8]
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forLewisham West 1938–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forHampstead 1950–1966 | Succeeded by |
| Political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Financial Secretary to the Treasury 1954–1957 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Housing and Local Government and Welsh Affairs 1957–1961 | Succeeded by |
| New post | Chief Secretary to the Treasury 1961–1962 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Paymaster General 1961–1962 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State for the Home Department 1962–1964 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Conservative Party onLondon County Council 1946–1952 | Succeeded by |
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