Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet

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Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
1960 – 11 November 1999
as a hereditary peer
Preceded byThe 1st Baron Kennet
Succeeded bySeat abolished
Personal details
Born2 August 1923
Died7 May 2009(2009-05-07) (aged 85)
Political party
Sir Peter Scott (half-brother)
Alma materTrinity College, Cambridge

Wayland Hilton Young, 2nd Baron Kennet (2 August 1923 – 7 May 2009) was a British writer and politician, notably concerned with planning and conservation. As a Labour minister, he was responsible for setting up the Department of the Environment and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Later he joined the SDP. He lost his seat in the Lords following the House of Lords Act 1999.

Early life

Young was the son of the multi-talented politician

Foreign Office
serving between 1946 and 1947 and 1949–1951.

In between and after, Young was a journalist – Observer correspondent in Rome and North Africa, and weekly columnist on The Guardian ("Sitting on a Column"), and theatre critic for Tribune. He was a frequent contributor to Encounter, where his articles were widely noticed – among them "Sitting on a Fortune" (about prostitution) and a review showing up many errors of fact in Roland Huntford's book on Scott and Amundsen, which denigrated the former (ignoring the scientific character of Scott's expedition), and presented the event as merely a "race" that the latter "won".

Young also wrote three novels, and several pamphlets for the Fabian Society on defence, disarmament, pollution, Europe and other topics, some with his wife, Elizabeth Young. Together they also wrote a book, Old London Churches (which identified the six churches designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor as works of real genius). Young also took part in the Campaign for the Abolition of Theatre Censorship as its Secretary. His energetic interest in disarmament did not lead him to join the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament – it worked for unilateral British nuclear disarmament: he believed that only general and comprehensive disarmament could be useful and effective.

Political career

Young succeeded to the title of

Tony Crosland) He was responsible for setting up the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
. According to his 1972 publication Preservation he worked on setting up the "Four Towns Report" and played an important role in establishing the foundations of conservation policy through the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 and his 1970 Kennet Report. After the fall of the [first]
Council for the Protection of Rural England, of the Advisory Committee on Pollution of the Sea (ACOPS), and various other organisations. He served as Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Affairs in the House of Lords from 1971 to 1974. He was also a member of the European Parliament, of the Western European Union
, and a NATO Parliamentarian.

Kennet joined the

hereditary peers of two of their number to continue to sit after the coming into force of the Act, finishing last in a field of six candidates.[4]

In 2005, he sought to return to the House in the by-election among Liberal Democrat hereditary peers caused by the death of Earl Russell; he was unsuccessful, receiving no votes.[4]

Until late in life he remained chairman of the Stonehenge Alliance,[5] and an active member of the Avebury Society[6] and Action for the River Kennet (ARK).[7]

Personal life

Lord Kennet married

Zizou Corder) and Zoe Young.[9] Emily, described as an enigmatic and modish teenager in the 1960s, was the probable inspiration for the Pink Floyd song "See Emily Play".[10]

The family homes were in Bayswater and in Wiltshire, where in 1908 Young's father had bought The Lacket,[11] an 18th-century thatched cottage on the edge of the village of Lockeridge, near Marlborough.[12]

Works

Young published on a wide range of mostly political topics, especially on the politics of

UK
conservation and preservation laws and policies, through the conservation struggles of the late 19th century until the 1968 Planning Act.

Bibliography

Arms

Coat of arms of Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet
Crest
A demi-unicorn couped Ermine, armed, maned, and hoofed Or, gorged with a naval crown Azure supporting an anchor erect Sable.
Escutcheon
Per fesse Sable and Argent: in chief two lions rampant-guardant, and in base an anchor erect with a cable, all counterchanged.
Motto
In College Domus (A House on a Hill)[14]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b White, Michael (12 May 2009). "Obituary: Lord Kennet – Author, journalist, politician and 'troublemaker' who went from Labour to the SDP, and back". The Guardian.
  2. ^ Dr. Moberly's Mint-Mark, Christopher Dilke, pp. 132–4.
  3. ^ Wayland Kennet, "Why I decided to rejoin the fold", in "What do they stand for now?", The Guardian, 16 April 1990, p. 11.
  4. ^ a b "United Kingdom Election Results – House of Lords Act: Hereditary Peers Elections". Retrieved 10 November 2010.
  5. ^ Woodford, Chris. "Save Stonehenge! Stonehenge Alliance". Save Stonehenge.. Archived via UK Rivers Network.
  6. ^ "Home". The Avebury Society.
  7. ^ "Catchment – ARK River Kennet". riverkennet.org.
  8. The Telegraph
    . 11 May 2009. Retrieved 25 December 2010.
  9. ^ "New Green Order". newgreenorder.info.
  10. ISBN 978-0-571-23855-2
    .
  11. ^ Historic England. "The Lacket (1033806)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  12. ^ "Lord Kennet". The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald. 21 May 2009. Retrieved 27 November 2020.
  13. ^ "Prohibition of Female Circumcision Bill [H.L.] (Hansard, 2 March 1983)". Hansard. 2 March 1983.
  14. ^ Debrett's Peerage & Baronetage. 2000.

External links

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Baron Kennet
1960–2009
Member of the House of Lords
(1960–1999) 		Succeeded by
William Young
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