Hastings Lees-Smith
George V | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Prime Minister | Ramsay MacDonald | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Preceded by | The Lord Selsdon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Succeeded by | Clement Attlee | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Personal details | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born | 26 January 1878 Queen's College, Oxford | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith
Family background
Lees-Smith was from an army family. His father was a major in the
In 1909, he went on an extended tour of India to lecture at
In 1938, he distributed 40 British passports to German Jews in Frankfurt, thus aiding their escape. The Chest of Surprises describes the Lees-Smith family history.[4]
Liberal Party
At the
Labour Party
In 1919, Lees-Smith joined the Labour Party. He was picked as Labour candidate for Keighley[2] and won the seat in the 1922 general election,[7] profiting from a divided opposition. He was a noted speaker on banking and on reform of the House of Lords, about which he wrote several books including Second Chambers in Theory and Practice (1923). Unfortunately for Lees-Smith, the Conservatives did not stand a candidate in the 1923 general election and he was defeated by the Liberal candidate.[8] That defeat prevented him from being appointed as a Minister in the first Labour government.
Ministerial office
The collapse of the Liberal Party in the
Defeated again in 1931, Lees-Smith again won his seat back in 1935.[2][7] He served on the front bench but was not invited by Winston Churchill to join the Coalition government in 1940. As one of the most senior Labour figures not in office, the responsibilities of running the party were given to him. In his partisan role he strongly supported Churchill's conduct as war leader even if the war was not always running in the Allies' favour.[2]
References
- ^ "Hastings Lees-Smith". Ruskin College, Oxford.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-349-07845-5.
- ^ "Papers of Dr Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith MP". Archives Hub. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
- ^ Sugarman, Daniel (4 August 2017). "MP Hastings Bertrand Lees-Smith saved dozens of lives, but had no idea". The Jewish Chronicle.
- ^ "leighrayment.com House of Commons: New Romney to Northampton". Archived from the original on 6 October 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ Max Egremont, Siegfried Sassoon (Picador, 2005) [page needed]
- ^ a b c "leighrayment.com House of Commons: Keighley to Kilkenny". Archived from the original on 2 October 2018. Retrieved 22 September 2009.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ISBN 978-0-521-58743-3.
- ^ "No. 33508". The London Gazette. 21 June 1929. p. 4105.
- ^ a b "No. 33696". The London Gazette. 6 March 1931. p. 1525.
- S2CID 4139966.