Charles Delacourt-Smith, Baron Delacourt-Smith

Charles George Percy Delacourt-Smith, Baron Delacourt-Smith, PC, JP (25 April 1917 – 2 August 1972),^[1] was a British trade unionist and Labour Party politician.

Background and education

Born in Windsor and named after his father, he was the only son of Charles Smith and his wife Ethel.^[2] He was educated at The Windsor Boys' School and went then to Wadham College, Oxford, graduating with a Master of Arts^[3]

Working life

Delacourt-Smith worked as librarian for the Oxford Union Society until 1938, when he became employed at the New Fabian Research Bureau as a research assistant.^[2] In 1939, he came to the Civil Service Clerical Association and was an assistant secretary until 1953.^[2] Subsequently he joined the Post Office Engineering Union, serving as its general secretary 1967.^[1] In 1960, he was nominated a Justice of the Peace, assigned to the County of London.^[2]

Political career

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Delacourt-Smith entered the Royal Engineers in July 1940.^[2] He was commissioned in January 1943 and was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps, where he was promoted to captain and was mentioned in despatches.^[3] After the end of the war Delacourt-Smith was admitted to the British House of Commons in 1945, having been elected for Colchester.^[3] He represented the constituency until 1950 and during this time was Parliamentary Private Secretary to Philip Noel-Baker in the latter's capacity as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.^[3] In 1947, he was chosen as an executive member of Labour's Research Department, a position he held for the next four years.^[2]

Delacourt-Smith was created a life peer as Baron Delacourt-Smith, of New Windsor, in the Royal County of Berkshire in 1967 and thus was enabled to a seat in the House of Lords.^[4] Two years later he was appointed Minister of State for Technology and on this occasion sworn of the Privy Council.^[1] In 1970, when the Conservative Party took office he was replaced as Minister.^[1]

Personal life

In 1939, he married Margaret, the daughter of Frederick Hando.^[5] They both had one son and two daughters.^[5] Together with his wife and younger daughter, he assumed the additional surname Delacourt by a deed poll in 1967.^[6] He died, aged 55, at the Westminster Hospital, London in 1972, after suffering a stroke while making a speech in the House of Lords, being survived by his wife.^[5] Two years after his death she received a life peerage in her own right.^[7]

Works

• Democratic Sweden (1938), Smith, G. and Cole, M. (eds), Routledge
• Britain's Food Supplies in Peace and War (1940), Smith, C., Routledge
• Modern Turkey (1940), Parker, J. and Smith, C., Routledge

Notes

1. Silva (1973), p. 510
2. Who's Who (1963), p. 2825
3. Dod (1969), p. 78
4. The London Gazette: no. 44432. p. 11275. 17 October 1967. Retrieved 26 December 2009.
5. Dod (2004), p. 538
6. The London Gazette: no. 44422. pp. 10717–10718. 3 October 1967. Retrieved 26 December 2009.
7. The London Gazette: no. 46352. p. 7918. 24 September 1974. Retrieved 26 December 2009.

References

• Who's Who 1963. London: Adam & Charles Black Ltd. 1963.
• Charles Roger Dod and Robert Philip Dod (1969). Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1969. Dod's Parliamentary Companion Ltd.
• Charles Roger Dod and Robert Phipps Dod (2004). Dod's Parliamentary Companion 2004. Vacher Dod Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-905702-43-3.
• Michel Silva, ed. (1973). Britannica Book of the Year 1973. Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. ISBN 0-85229-282-1.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Charles Delacourt-Smith, Baron Delacourt-Smith
• Portraits of Charles Delacourt-Smith, Baron Delacourt-Smith at the National Portrait Gallery, London