Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet
Encyclopedia
Sir
Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet, GBE
, PC (20 March 1879 – 11 July 1960), was a British
politician and writer.
), a noted classicist and charity commissioner. Sir George's paternal grandmother was Emily Baring of the eponymous merchant banking dynasty. Hilton's mother, formerly Alice Eacy Kennedy, was of Dublin Irish Protestant background and had previously lived in India
as Lady Lawrence, wife of Sir Alexander Lawrence, Bt, nephew to the Viceroy, Lord Lawrence
. Widowed when Sir Alexander died in a bridge collapse, Alice returned to England, marrying Sir George in 1871. Hilton was the youngest of three sons and one daughter (who died aged 14) born to the couple. The oldest brother, also George, would become a diplomat and Ottoman scholar. The next brother, Geoffrey (see Geoffrey Winthrop Young
), became a noted educator and mountaineer. Their childhood was spent at the family’s Thames-side ‘Formosa’ estate, at Cookham, Berkshire. On visits to their London house near Sloan Square, Hilton would often play in Kensington Gardens with the children of Sir George’s friend, Sir Leslie Stephen. In this way, he commenced a close friendship with his contemporary, Thoby Stephen, and became acquainted with Thoby’s siblings, Vanessa (see Vanessa Bell
), Virginia (see Virginia Woolf
) and Adrian.
At his preparatory school, Northaw Place, in 1892 Young took pity on nine-year-old Clement Attlee
on the latter's first day at school, offering the newcomer jam from his own pot. His secondary schooling commenced at Marlborough
but incessant bullying saw him transferred to Eton
where he joined the army stream which emphasised science rather than the classics. After two terms studying chemistry at University College London
, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge
in October 1897, emerging in 1900 with a 'first' in natural sciences and having achieved the office of president of the Union.
in 1904. However, after receiving few briefs and suffering a nervous breakdown, he transferred to financial journalism. In 1908 he was appointed assistant editor of The Economist
, resigning in 1910 to become city editor of The Morning Post. His 1912 work Foreign Companies and Other Corporations combined his legal and financial knowledge to examine the status of companies created in one national jurisdiction which operate in other jurisdictions.
At Cambridge, through Thoby Stephen
, he became acquainted with key members of what would become known as the ‘Bloomsbury group
’. He attended the group’s early gatherings at Gordon Square
and Fitzroy Square
, and became attracted to Virginia Stephen
, to whom he proposed on a punt on the Cam
in May 1909, only to be rejected. Another Cambridge friendship, made through his brother Geoffrey, was with G. M. Trevelyan
and in Spring 1906 he accompanied the historian during a retracement of the route of Garibaldi’s retreat which became the basis for Trevelyan’s Garibaldi trilogy. The second work in the trilogy — Garibaldi and the Thousand — was dedicated to the Young brothers and contained 15 photographs taken by Hilton.
, Harwich light cruisers, Admiral Troubridge
’s mission to the Danube
, naval siege guns at Flanders
, the Zeebrugge Raid
in which, commanding a rear gun on the Vindictive, he was severely wounded, necessitating the amputation of his right arm, and, finally, in the obscure Russian campaign, commanding an armoured train on the line south of Archangel
. These experiences were all recounted in his colourful 1920 war memoir, By Sea and Land. His war service also brought the awards of DSC and bar, DSO, Croix-de-Guerre and Serbian Silver Medal. Another literary consequence of his war service was A Muse at Sea, a compilation of his poems earlier published in the Ducal Weekly (the Iron Duke’s newspaper), the Morning Post, the Cornhill Magazine and the Nation. He also rendered other types of service to his friends Lytton Strachey
and Clive Bell
during the War. In 1908 he had bought a weekender cottage, the 'Lacket', at Lockeridge above Marlborough. During 1914–15 he rented the cottage to Strachey who drafted the first two chapters of his Eminent Victorians there. Facing a tribunal hearing to determine his claim for conscientious-objector status following the introduction of conscription, Bell appealed to Young in June 1916 for a testimonial which was duly provided.
In May 1915, while serving on the at Scapa Flow, the first edition of his System of National Finance appeared. Through further editions in 1924 and 1936, it remained the standard work on Westminster’s budgetary processes until well into the 1950s. Also while on active service, in February 1915 he was elected unopposed as a Liberal
at a by-election
for the seat of Norwich
. Post-war he started his rise up the political ladder in February 1919 when he was appointed parliamentary private secretary to H.A.L. Fisher, president of the Board of Education. In April 1921 he was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury
. In this capacity he was the link between the government and the ‘Geddes axe’, the committee of business experts established by Lloyd George in the aftermath of World War I to undertake a fundamental review of government expenditure in the hope of identifying major savings.
for the Lloyd George Liberals
and a Privy Counsellor. Losing his Norwich seat for 10 months during the political turmoil of 1923–4, he devoted the rest of the 1920s to furthering his personal and business interests, commencing with his 1922 marriage to sculptor Kathleen Scott
, née Bruce, widow of Captain Robert Falcon Scott
. With the marriage he became stepfather to Kathleen’s son, the future naturalist and yachtsman, Peter Scott. In August 1923 Kathleen, aged 45, gave birth to their son Wayland Young
, who became a writer and Labour
politician.
Speaking at the Gresham's School
prize-giving on 13 July 1923, Young "...recommended the boys to go in for great risks and dangerous deeds. Let them have adventure, and the madder the adventure, the better."
Through Cambridge and Bloomsbury, Young had a longstanding friendship with E.M. Forster. Suffering writer’s block while working on A Passage to India, the novelist was Young’s guest at the Lacket in early May 1922. Shortly afterwards he wrote to Young declaring, “an unfinished novel’s before me now, and sometimes I work at it with distaste and despair…You certainly have done more than any individual I know to help me by direct remarks. Your knowledge of the business of creating seemed to me profounder than that possessed by so-called artists.” These comments suggest that Young gave Forster significant advice and encouragement at a crucial stage on work on the latter’s eventual masterpiece.
In the City of London, Young became editor of the Financial News, 1926–29, when he introduced an Arts page which was continued by the Financial Times
when they were merged in 1946. He also joined the boards of the Southern Railway, English Electric, and Hudson’s Bay companies. For Westminster he became a peripatetic financial- and political-troubleshooter, undertaking inter alia financial missions to Poland (1922–3) and Iraq (1925, 1930) intended to stabilise the financial positions of these countries, the former recreated and he latter newly created after World War I. The 1930 Iraq mission saw him recommend the establishment of an Iraq Currency Board to issue a national currency, the dinar
, to replace Indian rupee
s issued as temporary currency when British forces displaced the Ottomans from the former Mesopotamia
during World War I. The Iraqi government accepted Young’s recommendations in relation to the nation’s currency and he became the inaugural chairman of the Iraq Currency Board on 11 June 1931. He also chaired the 1925–6 Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance (at which his friend Maynard Keynes was a key witness) and the 1927–8 East African Commission on Closer Union.
Young joined the Conservative Party
in 1926 during his term as MP for Norwich
. He served as a delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations
, 1926 and 1927. He became MP for Sevenoaks
in 1929 and served as Minister for Export Credits from 1929 and Minister of Health
between 1931 and 1935. The health portfolio also included responsibility for housing, including slum clearance and rehousing. Key items of legislation to which he contributed in this period were: the Town and Country Planning Act (1932) (which applied to all 'developable' land), the Housing Act (1935) (which laid down standards of accommodation) and the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act (1935) (which sought to consolidate urban development and restrict ribbon sprawl along major highways). He retired from politics in July 1935 and was created Baron Kennet of the Dene
.
He died at the Lacket on 11 July 1960 and was succeeded to the Kennet peerage by his son Wayland.
Sir
Sir is an honorific used as a title , or as a courtesy title to address a man without using his given or family name in many English speaking cultures...
Edward Hilton Young, 1st Baron Kennet, GBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
, PC (20 March 1879 – 11 July 1960), was a British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
politician and writer.
Family and early life
Young was the youngest son of Sir George Young, 3rd Baronet (see Young BaronetsYoung Baronets
There have been five Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Young, one in the Baronetage of England, one in the Baronetage of Great Britain and three in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom. Four of the creations are still extant...
), a noted classicist and charity commissioner. Sir George's paternal grandmother was Emily Baring of the eponymous merchant banking dynasty. Hilton's mother, formerly Alice Eacy Kennedy, was of Dublin Irish Protestant background and had previously lived in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
as Lady Lawrence, wife of Sir Alexander Lawrence, Bt, nephew to the Viceroy, Lord Lawrence
John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence
John Laird Mair Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence, GCB, GCSI, PC , known as Sir John Lawrence, Bt., between 1858 and 1869, was an Englishman who became a prominent British Imperial statesman who served as Viceroy of India from 1864 to 1869.-Early life:Lawrence came from Richmond, North Yorkshire...
. Widowed when Sir Alexander died in a bridge collapse, Alice returned to England, marrying Sir George in 1871. Hilton was the youngest of three sons and one daughter (who died aged 14) born to the couple. The oldest brother, also George, would become a diplomat and Ottoman scholar. The next brother, Geoffrey (see Geoffrey Winthrop Young
Geoffrey Winthrop Young
Geoffrey Winthrop Young D.Litt. was a British climber, poet and educator, and author of several notable books on mountaineering.-Mountaineering:...
), became a noted educator and mountaineer. Their childhood was spent at the family’s Thames-side ‘Formosa’ estate, at Cookham, Berkshire. On visits to their London house near Sloan Square, Hilton would often play in Kensington Gardens with the children of Sir George’s friend, Sir Leslie Stephen. In this way, he commenced a close friendship with his contemporary, Thoby Stephen, and became acquainted with Thoby’s siblings, Vanessa (see Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell
Vanessa Bell was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf.- Biography and art :...
), Virginia (see Virginia Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
) and Adrian.
At his preparatory school, Northaw Place, in 1892 Young took pity on nine-year-old Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
on the latter's first day at school, offering the newcomer jam from his own pot. His secondary schooling commenced at Marlborough
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
but incessant bullying saw him transferred to Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
where he joined the army stream which emphasised science rather than the classics. After two terms studying chemistry at University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
, he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
in October 1897, emerging in 1900 with a 'first' in natural sciences and having achieved the office of president of the Union.
Early career
Post-Cambridge he read for the Bar and was called by the Inner TempleInner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in 1904. However, after receiving few briefs and suffering a nervous breakdown, he transferred to financial journalism. In 1908 he was appointed assistant editor of The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, resigning in 1910 to become city editor of The Morning Post. His 1912 work Foreign Companies and Other Corporations combined his legal and financial knowledge to examine the status of companies created in one national jurisdiction which operate in other jurisdictions.
At Cambridge, through Thoby Stephen
Thoby Stephen
Julian Thoby Stephen , known as the Goth, was the elder brother of several members of the Bloomsbury Group, namely his sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf and his younger brother Adrian....
, he became acquainted with key members of what would become known as the ‘Bloomsbury group
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group or Bloomsbury Set was a group of writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists who held informal discussions in Bloomsbury throughout the 20th century. This English collective of friends and relatives lived, worked or studied near Bloomsbury in London during the first half...
’. He attended the group’s early gatherings at Gordon Square
Gordon Square
Gordon Square is in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, London, England . It was developed by Thomas Cubitt in the 1820s, as one of a pair with Tavistock Square, which is a block away and has the same dimensions...
and Fitzroy Square
Fitzroy Square
Fitzroy Square is one of the Georgian squares in London and is the only one found in the central London area known as in Fitzrovia.The square, nearby Fitzroy Street and the Fitzroy Tavern in Charlotte Street have the family name of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, into whose ownership the land...
, and became attracted to Virginia Stephen
Virginia Woolf
Adeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
, to whom he proposed on a punt on the Cam
River Cam
The River Cam is a tributary of the River Great Ouse in the east of England. The two rivers join to the south of Ely at Pope's Corner. The Great Ouse connects the Cam to England's canal system and to the North Sea at King's Lynn...
in May 1909, only to be rejected. Another Cambridge friendship, made through his brother Geoffrey, was with G. M. Trevelyan
G. M. Trevelyan
George Macaulay Trevelyan, OM, CBE, FRS, FBA , was a British historian. Trevelyan was the third son of Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, and great-nephew of Thomas Babington Macaulay, whose staunch liberal Whig principles he espoused in accessible works of literate narrative avoiding a...
and in Spring 1906 he accompanied the historian during a retracement of the route of Garibaldi’s retreat which became the basis for Trevelyan’s Garibaldi trilogy. The second work in the trilogy — Garibaldi and the Thousand — was dedicated to the Young brothers and contained 15 photographs taken by Hilton.
First World War
Enlisting in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve on 22 August 1914, he served in a wide variety of theatres and actions in the First World War, including the Grand Fleet at Scapa FlowScapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
, Harwich light cruisers, Admiral Troubridge
Ernest Troubridge
Admiral Sir Ernest Charles Thomas Troubridge KCMG, MVO was an officer of the Royal Navy who served during the First World War, later rising to the rank of admiral....
’s mission to the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
, naval siege guns at Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
, the Zeebrugge Raid
Zeebrugge Raid
The Zeebrugge Raid, which took place on 23 April 1918, was an attempt by the British Royal Navy to neutralize the key Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge...
in which, commanding a rear gun on the Vindictive, he was severely wounded, necessitating the amputation of his right arm, and, finally, in the obscure Russian campaign, commanding an armoured train on the line south of Archangel
Arkhangelsk
Arkhangelsk , formerly known as Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina River near its exit into the White Sea in the north of European Russia. The city spreads for over along the banks of the river...
. These experiences were all recounted in his colourful 1920 war memoir, By Sea and Land. His war service also brought the awards of DSC and bar, DSO, Croix-de-Guerre and Serbian Silver Medal. Another literary consequence of his war service was A Muse at Sea, a compilation of his poems earlier published in the Ducal Weekly (the Iron Duke’s newspaper), the Morning Post, the Cornhill Magazine and the Nation. He also rendered other types of service to his friends Lytton Strachey
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey was a British writer and critic. He is best known for establishing a new form of biography in which psychological insight and sympathy are combined with irreverence and wit...
and Clive Bell
Clive Bell
Arthur Clive Heward Bell was an English Art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group.- Origins :Clive Bell was born in East Shefford, Berkshire, in 1881...
during the War. In 1908 he had bought a weekender cottage, the 'Lacket', at Lockeridge above Marlborough. During 1914–15 he rented the cottage to Strachey who drafted the first two chapters of his Eminent Victorians there. Facing a tribunal hearing to determine his claim for conscientious-objector status following the introduction of conscription, Bell appealed to Young in June 1916 for a testimonial which was duly provided.
In May 1915, while serving on the at Scapa Flow, the first edition of his System of National Finance appeared. Through further editions in 1924 and 1936, it remained the standard work on Westminster’s budgetary processes until well into the 1950s. Also while on active service, in February 1915 he was elected unopposed as a Liberal
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
at a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
for the seat of Norwich
Norwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Norwich was a borough constituency which was represented in the House of Commons of England from 1298 to 1707, in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 until it was abolished for the 1950 general election...
. Post-war he started his rise up the political ladder in February 1919 when he was appointed parliamentary private secretary to H.A.L. Fisher, president of the Board of Education. In April 1921 he was promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury
Secretary to the Treasury
In the United Kingdom, there are several Secretaries to the Treasury, who are junior Treasury ministers nominally acting as secretaries to HM Treasury. The origins of the office are unclear, although it probably originated during Lord Burghley's tenure as Lord Treasurer in the 16th century. The...
. In this capacity he was the link between the government and the ‘Geddes axe’, the committee of business experts established by Lloyd George in the aftermath of World War I to undertake a fundamental review of government expenditure in the hope of identifying major savings.
Post-war career
Out of office with the advent of Bonar Law’s Conservative administration in August 1922, he became Chief WhipChief Whip
The Chief Whip is a political office in some legislatures assigned to an elected member whose task is to administer the whipping system that ensures that members of the party attend and vote as the party leadership desires.-The Whips Office:...
for the Lloyd George Liberals
National Liberal Party (UK, 1922)
The National Liberal Party was a liberal political party in the United Kingdom from 1922 to 1923. It was led by David Lloyd George and was, at the time, separate to the original Liberal Party.-History:...
and a Privy Counsellor. Losing his Norwich seat for 10 months during the political turmoil of 1923–4, he devoted the rest of the 1920s to furthering his personal and business interests, commencing with his 1922 marriage to sculptor Kathleen Scott
Kathleen Scott
Kathleen Scott, Baroness Kennet, FRSBS was a British sculptor.-Early life:Born Edith Agnes Kathleen Bruce at Carlton in Lindrick, Bassetlaw, Nottinghamshire, she was the youngest of eleven children of Canon Lloyd Stuart Bruce and Jane Skene Kathleen Scott, Baroness Kennet, FRSBS (27 March...
, née Bruce, widow of Captain Robert Falcon Scott
Robert Falcon Scott
Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13...
. With the marriage he became stepfather to Kathleen’s son, the future naturalist and yachtsman, Peter Scott. In August 1923 Kathleen, aged 45, gave birth to their son Wayland Young
Wayland Young
Wayland Hilton Young, 2nd Baron Kennet was a British writer Labour Party and SDP politician who served in numerous national and international official and unofficial capacities.-Early life:...
, who became a writer and Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
politician.
Speaking at the Gresham's School
Gresham's School
Gresham’s School is an independent coeducational boarding school in Holt in North Norfolk, England, a member of the HMC.The school was founded in 1555 by Sir John Gresham as a free grammar school for forty boys, following King Henry VIII's dissolution of the Augustinian priory at Beeston Regis...
prize-giving on 13 July 1923, Young "...recommended the boys to go in for great risks and dangerous deeds. Let them have adventure, and the madder the adventure, the better."
Through Cambridge and Bloomsbury, Young had a longstanding friendship with E.M. Forster. Suffering writer’s block while working on A Passage to India, the novelist was Young’s guest at the Lacket in early May 1922. Shortly afterwards he wrote to Young declaring, “an unfinished novel’s before me now, and sometimes I work at it with distaste and despair…You certainly have done more than any individual I know to help me by direct remarks. Your knowledge of the business of creating seemed to me profounder than that possessed by so-called artists.” These comments suggest that Young gave Forster significant advice and encouragement at a crucial stage on work on the latter’s eventual masterpiece.
In the City of London, Young became editor of the Financial News, 1926–29, when he introduced an Arts page which was continued by the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
when they were merged in 1946. He also joined the boards of the Southern Railway, English Electric, and Hudson’s Bay companies. For Westminster he became a peripatetic financial- and political-troubleshooter, undertaking inter alia financial missions to Poland (1922–3) and Iraq (1925, 1930) intended to stabilise the financial positions of these countries, the former recreated and he latter newly created after World War I. The 1930 Iraq mission saw him recommend the establishment of an Iraq Currency Board to issue a national currency, the dinar
Dinar
The dinar is the official currency of several countries.The history of the dinar dates to the gold dinar, an early Islamic coin corresponding to the Byzantine denarius auri...
, to replace Indian rupee
Indian rupee
The Indian rupee is the official currency of the Republic of India. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the Reserve Bank of India....
s issued as temporary currency when British forces displaced the Ottomans from the former Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a toponym for the area of the Tigris–Euphrates river system, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq, northeastern Syria, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.Widely considered to be the cradle of civilization, Bronze Age Mesopotamia included Sumer and the...
during World War I. The Iraqi government accepted Young’s recommendations in relation to the nation’s currency and he became the inaugural chairman of the Iraq Currency Board on 11 June 1931. He also chaired the 1925–6 Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance (at which his friend Maynard Keynes was a key witness) and the 1927–8 East African Commission on Closer Union.
Young joined the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
in 1926 during his term as MP for Norwich
Norwich (UK Parliament constituency)
Norwich was a borough constituency which was represented in the House of Commons of England from 1298 to 1707, in the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800, and in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1801 until it was abolished for the 1950 general election...
. He served as a delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
, 1926 and 1927. He became MP for Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks (UK Parliament constituency)
Sevenoaks is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
in 1929 and served as Minister for Export Credits from 1929 and Minister of Health
Secretary of State for Health
Secretary of State for Health is a UK cabinet position responsible for the Department of Health.The first Boards of Health were created by Orders in Council dated 21 June, 14 November, and 21 November 1831. In 1848 a General Board of Health was created with the First Commissioner of Woods and...
between 1931 and 1935. The health portfolio also included responsibility for housing, including slum clearance and rehousing. Key items of legislation to which he contributed in this period were: the Town and Country Planning Act (1932) (which applied to all 'developable' land), the Housing Act (1935) (which laid down standards of accommodation) and the Restriction of Ribbon Development Act (1935) (which sought to consolidate urban development and restrict ribbon sprawl along major highways). He retired from politics in July 1935 and was created Baron Kennet of the Dene
Baron Kennet
Baron Kennet, of the Dene in the County of Wiltshire, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1935 for the journalist and politician Sir Hilton Young. He was the youngest son of Sir George Young, 3rd Baronet, of Formosa Place. He was succeeded by his son, the second...
.
After politics
Away from politics, he could now resume corporate life. By 1940, Lord Kennet was either chairman or a director of eight listed companies, which apart from the Southern Railway and timber merchants, Denny, Mott and Dickson Ltd, were engaged in the financial services and property sectors. In May 1940 he resumed his former role as chairman of the Iraq Currency Board when Leo Amery, who had replaced him as chairman in 1932, resigned on becoming a member of the wartime government. His political and financial experience made him a natural choice to chair the Capital Issues Committee during 1937–59. Responsible for advising the Chancellor of the Exchequer “on applications to issue capital for any purpose anywhere”, this committee was particularly important during World War II when it had to approve all issues of shares and securities with face values exceeding ₤10,000.He died at the Lacket on 11 July 1960 and was succeeded to the Kennet peerage by his son Wayland.