On This Day

17 November 1960

Death of William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate, opponent of Lloyd George who joined the Labour Party in the 1920s

Wedgwood Benn came from a Liberal family. His father John was a Liberal member of the London County Council and an MP. When William was elected Liberal MP for St Georges, Tower Hamlets in 1906, he was the youngest MP in the House of Commons. He sat there till 1918 and then for Leith (1918-1927) and served as a government whip between 1910 and 1915. In 1927, mainly in protest at the return of Lloyd George to the Liberal leadership, he resigned from the Liberal Party and from Parliament. He returned to Westminster as Labour MP for Aberdeen North in 1928 and went on to become Secretary of State for India in the second Labour government. He was the father of Tony Benn.