Richard Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Richard Walter Hely-Hutchinson, 6th Earl of Donoughmore KP (1875–1948) was an Earl in the Peerage of Ireland who sat in the House of Lords as Viscount Hutchinson in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

He attended Eton College

From 1903 to 1905 he was Under-Secretary of State for War in the Unionist Government 1895-1905.

From 1911 he was Lord Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords

In 1916 he was part of the Mesopotamia Commission of Inquiry[1].

In 1921 he was elected one of the fifteen Peers of the Realm resident in the South (elected by a constituency of all Southern Ireland peers) to be a member of the Senate of Southern Ireland under the Government of Ireland Act 1920.The Senate convened in 1921 but was boycotted by Irish nationalists. Donoughmore did not attend its first meeting.

In 1929 he chaired the Committee on Ministers' Powers following Viscount Hewart's controversial book, The New Despotism, in which Hewart claimed that the rule of law in Britain was being undermined by the legislature. The book was very controversial and led to the Committee. The Report rejected Hewart's arguments.


Peerage of Ireland
Preceded by
John Hely-Hutchinson
Earl of Donoughmore
1900–1945
Succeeded by
John Hely-Hutchinson

[edit] References

  1. ^ From: 'Appendix 1', Office-Holders in Modern Britain: Volume 10: Officials of Royal Commissions of Inquiry 1870-1939 (1995), pp. 85-8. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=16611. Date accessed: 12 August 2007.