Thomas Skeffington-Lodge
Encyclopedia
Thomas Cecil Skeffington-Lodge (15 January 1905 – 23 February 1994) was a British Labour Party
politician. He was Member of Parliament
(MP) for Bedford
from 1945 to 1950.
He was from a Yorkshire farming family which owned 2,000 acres. His mother, Winifred Skeffington, was a suffragette and his father, Thomas Lodge, from the famous Lodge family, American and British.
The novelist Francis King came to grief in 1969 with a novel entitled ‘A Domestic Animal’, a semi-autobiographical account of his affair with an Italian academic. The trouble came not from the ex-boyfriend, but from Tom Skeffington-Lodge. It was his dream to be elevated to the House of Lords, and to this effect he petitioned the former Labour leader Clement Attlee to use his influence. Attlee returned the Delphic reply that he hoped Skeffington-Lodge would "get what he deserved" who then remarked to friends that his peerage was "in the bag". Francis King put these words into the mouth of a female character he called Dame Winifred Harcourt. Skeffington-Lodge however got the book withdrawn.
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. He was Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) for Bedford
Bedford (UK Parliament constituency)
Bedford is a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The seat was established in its current form in 1997, restoring a centuries old name. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first-past-the-post system of election...
from 1945 to 1950.
He was from a Yorkshire farming family which owned 2,000 acres. His mother, Winifred Skeffington, was a suffragette and his father, Thomas Lodge, from the famous Lodge family, American and British.
The novelist Francis King came to grief in 1969 with a novel entitled ‘A Domestic Animal’, a semi-autobiographical account of his affair with an Italian academic. The trouble came not from the ex-boyfriend, but from Tom Skeffington-Lodge. It was his dream to be elevated to the House of Lords, and to this effect he petitioned the former Labour leader Clement Attlee to use his influence. Attlee returned the Delphic reply that he hoped Skeffington-Lodge would "get what he deserved" who then remarked to friends that his peerage was "in the bag". Francis King put these words into the mouth of a female character he called Dame Winifred Harcourt. Skeffington-Lodge however got the book withdrawn.