Dennis Herbert, 1st Baron Hemingford

The Right Honourable The Lord Hemingford KBE PC
Chairman of Ways and Means
In office 1931–1943
Monarch	George V Edward VIII George VI
Preceded by	Robert Young
Succeeded by	Douglas Clifton Brown
First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means
In office 1928–1929
Preceded by	Edward Fitzroy
Succeeded by	Herbert Dunnico

Dennis Henry Herbert, 1st Baron Hemingford KBE PC (25 February 1869 – 10 December 1947), was a British Conservative politician.

Life

Herbert was the eldest son of Reverend Henry Herbert, Rector of Hemingford Abbots in Huntingdonshire. He was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for Watford at the 1918 general election, a seat he held until 1943. From 1928 to 1929 he served as Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means and from 1931 to 1943 as Chairman of Ways and Means (Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons). Appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1929,^[1] Herbert was admitted to the Privy Council in 1933 and on 1 February 1943 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Hemingford, of Watford in the County of Hertford.^[2]

Lord Hemingford married Mary, daughter of Valentine Graeme Bell, in 1903. He died in December 1947, aged 78, and was succeeded in the barony by his son Dennis George Ruddock Herbert. Lady Hemingford died in 1966.

Between 1918 and 1943, Herbert lived in a Victorian villa at 36 Clarendon Road, Watford. This locally listed building building was later used as a registry office until it was demolished in 2015 by Hertfordshire County Council to make way for a block of flats and offices.^[3][4]

A 1944 portrait of Herbert by the Scottish painter George Harcourt hangs in the Watford Museum,^[5] and there are also photographic portraits of Herbert by the high-society portrait photographers Bassano & Vandyk in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery in London.^[6]

References

1. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 33472. p. 1440. 1 March 1929.
2. The London Gazette: no. 35888. p. 607. 2 February 1943.
3. "Locally Listed Buildings in Watford". Watford Borough Council. 2010. p. 245. Archived from the original on 5 March 2012. Retrieved 13 April 2015.
4. "Victorian villa in Clarendon Road to be demolished to make way for flats and offices". Watford Observer. 6 June 2014. Archived from the original on 3 May 2015. Retrieved 3 May 2015.
5. "The Right Honourable Sir Dennis Henry Herbert, Lord Hemingford (1869-1947) Harcourt, George 1868-1947 1944 Oil on canvas". Watford Museum Fine Art Collection. Archived from the original on 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
6. "Dennis Henry Herbert, 1st Baron Hemingford (1869-1947), Politician; MP for Watford". National Portrait Gallery. Archived from the original on 5 May 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages
• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Dennis Herbert