Walter de Frece

Sir Walter de Frece (7 October 1870 – 7 January 1935) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1920 to 1931.

He was first elected as MP for Ashton-under-Lyne at a by-election in 1920, after the constituency's Conservative MP Sir Albert Stanley was elevated to the peerage.Sir Walter had been knighted in 1919 for services to the theatre. He was one of four sons of Henry de Frece, a prominent Liverpool theatrical manager and pioneering actors' agent from a large theatrical family. Henry de Frece had educated his sons well in order to keep them out of theatre. Instead, Walter married the male impersonator Vesta Tilley, at Brixton Register Office on 16 August, 1890. [ [http://www.btinternet.com/~radical/thefolkmag/vesta.htm "Vesta Tilley Biography"] accessed 15 Jan 2008] He then joined England's largest theatrical agent Dick Warner in London for some years before going out on his own to start the de Frece Circuit and a chain of music halls called "The Hippodromes", where Tilley was a regular performer. Sir Walter's brother, Lauri de Frece was a celebrated comedian. Henry de Frece outlived most of his own children, and died at the age of 96.

Sir Walter was re-elected at the 1922 general election and at the 1923 general election, when his majority was cut to only 239 votes. At the 1924 general election he did not stand again in Ashton-under-Lyne, but moved to the more promising Blackpool constituency, where he was returned with a majority of over 7,000 votes. He held the seat with a similar majority in 1929, and retired from the House of Commons at the 1931 general election.

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