- Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor
Infobox Politician
honorific-prefix =The Right Honourable
name = Henry Brooke
honorific-suffix =Baron Brooke of Cumnor
birth_date =9 April 1903
death_date = Death date and age|1984|03|29|1903|4|9|df=yes
office4 =Home Secretary
term_start4 =14 July 1964
term_end4 = 1964
predecessor4 =Rab Butler
successor4 =Frank Soskice
party = Conservative PartyHenry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor CH (
9 April 1903 –29 March 1984 ) was a British Conservative Party politician.Educated at
Marlborough College andBalliol College, Oxford , Brooke became a founder of theConservative Research Department in 1929. Brooke was elected as a ConservativeMember of Parliament for Lewisham West in a 1938by-election . He was an ardent defender ofNeville Chamberlain in the debate of May 1940, just before the prime minister's fall from power, and Brooke himself was defeated in the 1945 general election. That same year he was elected to theLondon County Council , and served as Conservative leader on the council until 1951, continuing to serve on the Council and the Hampstead borough council until 1955.Brooke returned to parliament in 1950, and entered Winston Churchill's government in 1954 as
Financial Secretary to the Treasury . He continued in this job until 1957, when he becameMinister of Housing and Local Government and Minister of Welsh Affairs in the Macmillan government, entering the Cabinet, and in 1961 he became the firstChief Secretary to the Treasury . In 1962 he reached his highest level in government, becomingHome Secretary followingHarold Macmillan 's "Night of the Long Knives" when many senior ministers were sacked. AsHome Secretary , Brooke was not particularly successful, and his actions caused controversy on several occasions, including a failure to provide adequate security for astate visit by King Paul and Queen Frederica of Greece.Brooke was one of many politicians to receive unprecedented criticism on "
That Was The Week That Was " onBBC Television in 1962/63, which called him "the most hated man in Britain" and ended a mock profile of him with the phrase "If you're Home Secretary, you can get away with murder". He was also involved in the passage of various new anti-drug laws, including ones banning possession ofamphetamines and the growing ofcannabis . As the final arbiter in death penalty cases he was the last Home Secretary to allow a death sentence to go ahead.Brooke went into opposition following the Conservative defeat in 1964, and he lost his seat in the subsequent election in 1966. He was created a life peer as Baron Brooke of Cumnor, of Cumnor in the Royal County of
Berks in that year, but largely retired from public life. He died fromParkinson's disease , aged 80. His wife, Barbara was created a life peer in 1964 and his son,Peter Brooke ,Baron Brooke of Sutton Mandeville , also served as a ConservativeMember of Parliament andSecretary of State .References
*cite book | author= | title=The Times House of Commons 1955 | publisher="
The Times " | year=1955 | editor= | id=
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