Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor

Henry Brooke, Baron Brooke of Cumnor CH (9 April 1903 – 29 March 1984) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Educated at Marlborough College and Balliol College, Oxford, Brooke became a founder of the Conservative Research Department in 1929. Brooke was elected as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Lewisham West in a 1938 by-election. He was an ardent defender of Neville 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 the London 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 became Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister of Welsh Affairs in the Macmillan government, entering the Cabinet, and in 1961 he became the first Chief Secretary to the Treasury. In 1962 he reached his highest level in government, becoming Home Secretary following Harold Macmillan's "Night of the Long Knives" when many senior ministers were sacked. As Home Secretary, Brooke was not particularly successful, and his actions caused controversy on several occasions, including a failure to provide adequate security for a state 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" on BBC 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 of amphetamines and the growing of cannabis. As the final arbiter in death penalty cases he was the last Home Secretary to allow a death sentance 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 from Parkinson'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 Conservative Member of Parliament and Secretary of State.

References

• (1955) The Times House of Commons 1955. The Times. 

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