Harry Crookshank, 1st Viscount Crookshank

Harry Frederick Comfort Crookshank, 1st Viscount Crookshank CH, PC (27 May 1893 – 17 October 1961), was a British Conservative politician. He was Minister of Health between 1951 and 1952 and Leader of the House of Commons between 1951 and 1952.

Background and education

Crookshank was born in Cairo, Egypt, the son of Harry Maule Crookshank and Emma, daughter of Major Samuel Comfort, of New York City. On his father's side he descended from Alexander Crookshank, of County Longford, Ireland, who represented Belfast in the Irish House of Commons and served as a Justice of the Court of Common Please in Ireland. He was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford. In the First World War he served as a Captain in the Grenadier Guards^[1] and was castrated by shrapnel in 1916. He joined the Diplomatic Service in 1919 and worked at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. until 1924.

Political career

Crookshank was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Gainsborough in 1924, a seat he held for the next 32 years.^[1][2] He entered the government as Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department in 1934 under Ramsay Macdonald. When Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister in 1935 Crookshank was appointed Secretary for Mines, a post he retained when Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister in 1937. In 1939 he was sworn of the Privy Council^[3] and made Financial Secretary to the Treasury. He continued in this post also when Winston Churchill came to power in 1940,^[4] and was then Postmaster General under Churchill between 1943 and 1945.^[1]

When the Conservatives returned to office under Churchill in 1951, Crookshank was appointed Minister of Health and Leader of the House of Commons, with a seat in the cabinet. In 1952 exchanged his post at the Ministry of Health for the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal, while he remained as Commons Leader. He continued in these two positions until December 1955, the last year under the premiership of Sir Anthony Eden.^[1] He retired from the House of Commons in 1956^[1][2] and was raised to the peerage as the Viscount Crookshank, of Gainsborough in the County of Lincoln, in January of that year.^[5] In 1955 he was also made a Companion of Honour.^[1][6]

Papers released by The National Archives, London, November 2007, show that Crookshank, with Harold Macmillan, led a faction within the Cabinet of Sir Winston Churchill's government, who opposed what they perceived to be an attempt to bounce the Cabinet into a premature decision to authorise a British thermonuclear bomb programme in July 1954.

Personal life

Lord Crookshank was a 33rd degree Freemason.^[7] He died at Chelsea, London, in October 1961, aged 68. The viscountcy died with him.^[1]

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Harry Crookshank