15 January 1912

Death of Henry Labouchere, diplomat, writer and radical MP

Between 1865 and 1906 he represented variously Windsor and Middlesex and after 1880 Northampton along with Charles Bradlaugh whose controversial atheism led Labouchre, a closet agnostic, to refer to himself mockingly as “the Christian member for Northampton.” He never held high government office as Queen Victoria thought he had insulted the Royal Family and refused to allow Gladstone to give him a job, probably the last time the monarch has vetoed a prime minister’s right to appoint his own ministers.