The Right Honourable The Lord Thorneycroft CH PC
by Walter Stoneman, 1948
Chairman of the Conservative Party
In office 11 February 1975 – 14 September 1981
Leader	Margaret Thatcher
Preceded by	William Whitelaw
Succeeded by	Cecil Parkinson
Secretary of State for Defence[a]
In office 13 July 1962 – 16 October 1964
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan Alec Douglas-Home
Preceded by	Harold Watkinson
Succeeded by	Denis Healey
Minister of Aviation
In office 27 July 1960 – 13 July 1962
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Duncan Sandys
Succeeded by	Julian Amery
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 13 January 1957 – 6 January 1958
Prime Minister	Harold Macmillan
Preceded by	Harold Macmillan
Succeeded by	Derick Heathcoat-Amory
President of the Board of Trade
In office 30 October 1951 – 13 January 1957
Prime Minister	Winston Churchill Anthony Eden
Preceded by	Hartley Shawcross
Succeeded by	David Eccles
Shadow Cabinet portfolios Shadow Home Secretary In office 16 February 1965 – 13 April 1966 Leader Alec Douglas-Home Edward Heath Preceded by Edward Boyle Succeeded by Quintin Hogg Shadow Secretary of State for Defence In office 16 October 1964 – 16 February 1965 Leader Alec Douglas-Home Preceded by Denis Healey Succeeded by Christopher Soames
Parliamentary offices Member of theHouse of Lords Lord Temporal In office 4 December 1967 – 4 June 1994 Life Peerage Member of Parliament forMonmouth In office 31 October 1945 – 10 March 1966 Preceded by Leslie Pym Succeeded by Donald Anderson Member of Parliament forStafford In office 9 June 1938 – 15 June 1945 Preceded by William Ormsby-Gore Succeeded by Stephen Swingler
Personal details
Born	(1909-07-26)26 July 1909 Dunston, United Kingdom
Died	4 June 1994(1994-06-04) (aged 84) London, United Kingdom
Party	Conservative
Spouse	Carla Malagola ​ (m. 1949)​
Alma mater	Royal Military Academy, Woolwich City Law School

George Edward Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft,CH, PC (26 July 1909 – 4 June 1994) was aBritish Conservative Party politician. He served asChancellor of the Exchequer between 1957 and 1958.

Born inDunston, Staffordshire, Thorneycroft was the son of Major George Edward Mervyn Thorneycroft and Dorothy Hope Franklyn. He was the grandson of SirWilliam Franklyn and nephew of SirHarold Franklyn.^[1] He was educated atEton and theRoyal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned into theRoyal Artillery as a second lieutenant on 29 August 1929 but resigned his commission on 1 July 1931.^[2][3] In 1933, he was called to thebar for theInner Temple.

He enteredParliament in the1938 Stafford by-election, for the borough ofStafford. He was re-commissioned into the Royal Artillery in his previous rank on 30 August 1939.^[4] During theSecond World War, he served with the Royal Artillery and the general staff. Along with other members of theTory Reform Committee, Thorneycroft pressed his party to support theBeveridge Report.

He served in the Conservativecaretaker Government 1945 asParliamentary Secretary at theMinistry of War Transport. In the1945 general election, he lost his seat to his Labour opponent,Stephen Swingler, but he returned in the1945 Monmouth by-election forMonmouth a few months later.^[5]

Throughout the late 1940s Thorneycroft worked assiduously to refurbish the Conservative Party after its disastrous defeat in the 1945 general election. His opposition to theAnglo-American loan in the Commons earned him a reputation as a parliamentary debater, and when the Conservatives returned to power after thegeneral election of 1951, he was appointedPresident of the Board of Trade. He was instrumental in persuading the government in 1954 to abandon the party's support forprotectionism and accept theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.^[6]

Thorneycroft's support forHarold Macmillan in Macmillan's successful 1957 leadership contest for the premiership led to his appointment asChancellor of the Exchequer,^[7] one of the most senior positions in the government. He resigned in 1958, along with two juniorTreasury Ministers,Enoch Powell andNigel Birch, because of increased government expenditure. Macmillan, himself a former chancellor, made a famous and much-quoted remark that the resignations were merely "little local difficulties". In reality, Macmillan was deeply concerned about the possible effects of Thorneycroft's resignation.^{[citation needed]}

In retrospect, Thorneycroft questioned the wisdom of his resignation, saying that "we probably made our stand too early."^{[citation needed]}

Thorneycroft returned to the Cabinet in 1960, when he was appointedMinister of Aviation by Macmillan. In 1962, he was promoted to beMinister of Defence. He retained the post upon Macmillan's replacement by SirAlec Douglas-Home; then in April 1964 the post was combined with theFirst Lord of the Admiralty,Secretary of State for War andSecretary of State for Air as theSecretary of State for Defence. At Defence, Thorneycroft played a pivotal role in theSunda Straits Crisis, first supporting and then opposing the passage of the aircraft carrierHMSVictorious through the Indonesian-claimed Sunda Strait during the height of the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation in August and September 1964.^[8]

After the Government was defeated in 1964, Thorneycroft first served asShadow Secretary of State for Defence underAlec Douglas-Home, before being madeShadow Home Secretary by Edward Heath the next year. Thorneycroft lost his seat at the1966 general election, and was raised to thepeerage as alife peer asBaron Thorneycroft, ofDunston in theCounty of Stafford on 4 December 1967.^[9]

Thorneycroft was a strong supporter ofMargaret Thatcher'smonetarist policies and she made himChairman of the Conservative Party in 1975, succeeding histhird cousinWilliam Whitelaw. He held the position until 1981.

He was notable as an amateur watercolourist and held exhibitions.Winston Churchill, when told of Thorneycroft's interest, had said, "Every minister must have his vice. Painting shall be yours".^[5]

He was appointed to theOrder of the Companions of Honour as a Member (CH) in the1980 New Year Honours.^[10] During his time as M.P. for Monmouth, Thorneycroft lived atMachen House, in the hamlet ofLower Machen, to the west of theCity of Newport.^[11]

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His grandfather was the Victorian Colonel Thomas Thorneycroft, a Wolverhampton industrialist, eccentric, landowner and well-known Conservative; he was asked to stand for election byBenjamin Disraeli. Colonel Thorneycroft owned or leased various houses inStaffordshire andShropshire including Tettenhall Towers andTong Castle.

His great-grandfather wasGeorge Benjamin Thorneycroft, an ironfounder, JP, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire and first Mayor ofWolverhampton. His grandfather's cousin was John Isaac Thorneycroft who foundedVosper Thorneycroft.Siegfried Sassoon and novelistEllen Thorneycroft Fowler were Peter Thorneycroft'ssecond cousins, whileWilliam Whitelaw was his third. His great uncle wasLord Wolverhampton.

After Thorneycroft's first marriage, to Sheila Wells Page, and divorce, he marriedCarla, Contessa Roberti (later known as Lady Thorneycroft, DBE) in 1949. He had a son by his first wife and a daughter by his second wife.

• Craig, F.W.S. (1983) [1969].British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services.ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
• Dell, Edmund.The Chancellors: A History of the Chancellors of the Exchequer, 1945-90 (HarperCollins, 1997) pp 223–41, covers his term as Chancellor.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs
• The Times, 6 June 1994 (obit)
• The Daily Telegraph, 6 June 1994 (obit)

• Hansard 1803–2005:contributions in Parliament by Peter Thorneycroft
• Brief biography and list of Thorneycroft documents held atSouthampton University
• Review of Peter Thorneycroft biography by Stanley Crooks atSouthampton University, October 2007
• Publisher's blurb for the Crooks biography of Thorneycroft
• Two portraits of Peter Thorneycroft at theNational Portrait Gallery, one being a photograph byCecil Beaton

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