Sir Richard Acland, Bt | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of Parliament forGravesend | |
| In office 26 November 1947 – 6 May 1955 | |
| Preceded by | Garry Allighan |
| Succeeded by | Peter Kirk |
| Member of Parliament forBarnstaple | |
| In office 14 November 1935 – 15 June 1945 | |
| Preceded by | Basil Peto |
| Succeeded by | Christopher Peto |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1906-11-26)26 November 1906 Broadclyst,Devon, England |
| Died | 24 November 1990(1990-11-24) (aged 83) Exeter,Devon, England |
| Political party | Independent (from 1955) Labour (1945–1955) Common Wealth (1942-1945) Liberal (until 1942) |
| Other political affiliations | Popular Front |
| Spouse | Anne Stella Alford |
| Parent(s) | Francis Acland Eleanor Acland |
| Education | Balliol College, Oxford |
Sir Richard Thomas Dyke Acland, 15th Baronet (26 November 1906 – 24 November 1990) was one of the founding members of the BritishCommon Wealth Party in 1942, having previously been aLiberalMember of Parliament (MP). He joined theLabour Party in 1945 and was later a Labour MP.[1] He was one of the founders of theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Richard Thomas Dyke Acland was born on 26 November 1906 atBroadclyst,Devon, the eldest son of SirFrancis Dyke Acland (1874–1939), 14th Baronet, a LiberalMember of Parliament (MP) and of his first wife Eleanor Acland, née Cropper (1878–1933), aLiberal politician,suffragist, and novelist.[2] He had two brothers and one sister; his brotherGeoffrey Acland also became a Liberal politician.
He was educated atRugby School and atBalliol College, Oxford, before qualifying as abarrister (admitted at the Inner Temple in 1930).[2] He briefly served in peacetime as a lieutenant in the96th (Royal Devon Yeomanry) Field Brigade, RA.
Acland stood unsuccessfully forParliament as the Liberal candidate forTorquay at the1929 general election. He was elected Liberal MP forBarnstaple at the1935 election, having first contested the seat in the1931 general election. He was ajunior whip for the Liberals.[2] He helped launch thePopular Front in December 1936.[3] His politics changed course subsequently, as seen in the various politicalpamphlets he wrote.
On 15 April 1936, he married Anne Stella Alford, an architect; together they had four sons, includingJohn Dyke Acland andRobert D. Acland.
He succeeded his father asbaronet in 1939.
In 1942, Acland broke from the Liberals to found the socialistCommon Wealth Party withJ. B. Priestley andTom Wintringham, opposing the coalition between the major parties. During theSecond World War, the new party showed signs of a breakthrough, especially inLondon andMerseyside, winning three by-elections. However, the1945 general election was a severe disappointment. Only one Member of Parliament,Ernest Millington, was elected, and other figures left, some joining theLabour Party. Acland himself failed to winPutney, where he came third.[4]
Acland joined Labour and was selected to fight theGravesend seat following the expulsion of the Labour member of parliamentGarry Allighan from the party for making allegations of corruption. He won theGravesend by-election of November 1947 with a majority of 1,675.[citation needed]
Back in Parliament, Acland served asSecond Church Estates Commissioner 1950–51. In 1955, he resigned from Labour in protest against the party's support for the Conservative government'snuclear defence policy, and lost Gravesend standing as an independent the same year, allowing the Conservatives to take the seat, denying it to the new Labour candidate,Victor Mishcon.[citation needed]
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As an advocate of public land ownership, Acland felt it impossible to reconcile his possession of the Acland estates with his politics; in 1944 he sold hisWest Country estates atKillerton in Devon andHolnicote in Somerset to theNational Trust for £134,000 (2011 equivalent £13.5 million),[5] partly out of principle and also to ensure their preservation intact.[6]
This decision to relinquish the Acland property led to disagreements with his wife and the possibility of separation, but they eventually reconciled; Anne Acland, before depositing her letters, destroyed all those relating to this period of disagreement, between mid-summer 1942 and January 1943.[7]Corresponding with the National Trust, Acland said: "I am not giving you all my property. I am keeping some of it to live on, some of it to buy a house, and some of it I am giving to Common Wealth. With what is left I pay off as much of the debts as possible [these being £21,000 death duties on his father's estate, and £11,000 accumulated debt, equivalent to circa £3 million in 2011], and then hand over the rest to you, leaving you, I regret to say, to look after what is left of the debts."
The terms of this deal were kept secret; "in widespread publicity from which the National Trust and the Aclands emerged glowing with virtue, the entire transaction was portrayed as a gift" and "the Aclands held on to... eighteenth-century family plates and dishes, portraits and landscapes, a group of family miniatures, an early nineteenth-century piano... they were able to buy a nice house in Hampstead at 66 Frognal Street; there was to be an education fund for the boys; and Common Wealth received about £65,000, allowing it to win two more by-elections."
Additionally, Acland retained some feudal rights, including the gift of the living at the parish church, and entitlement to shooting ("to be arranged as to suit the convenience of the shooting tenants") and fishing (with one rod on theNutscale Reservoir).[8]
Acland's sons were in later years displeased with the sale of the estates; the heir, John, left a 1994 document at Devon Record Office outlining "how he had made many requests that his mother 'should explain to me why the Killerton and Holnicote estates had been given [sic] to the National Trust in the 1940s'... John found on reading [the letters between his mother and father] that she had destroyed all the documents from the critical period at the end of 1942... His note continued: 'Anne only talked to me once, in 1989, about the gift [sic] of the estates... her principal contention was that she and Richard had been in complete agreement at every stage.' Perhaps all this secrecy, the denial of the story, was an attempt by Anne and Richard to protect themselves from the rage of their children."[9]
Soon after leaving parliament he took a job as a maths master atWandsworth Grammar School in Sutherland Grove, new Southfields, London, with effect from September 1955. In 1957 he helped to form theCampaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and was a senior lecturer in education atSt. Luke's College of Education, Exeter, between 1959 and his retirement in 1974. He became president ofThe Devonshire Association in 1974.[10] Acland died inExeter in 1990, two days before his 84th birthday.
Acland's book,Unser Kampf, published by Penguin in 1940, containing ideas inspired by a Christian-based moral view of society. It proved highly popular, going through five impressions in six months. His later works,The Forward March (1941) andHow it can be done (1943) elaborated on these themes.[11] He advocated common ownership, citing the work ofConrad Noel as well as the Bible to support his views.[12]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Chairman of the Common Wealth Party 1942–1943 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Chairman of the Common Wealth Party 1944–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forBarnstaple 1935–1945 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forGravesend 1947–1955 | Succeeded by |
| Baronetage of England | ||
| Preceded by | Baronet (of Columb John, Devonshire) 1939–1990 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
