Frank Soskice, Baron Stow Hill, PC, QC (23 July 1902 – 1 January 1979) was a British lawyer and Labour Party politician.
Background and education
Soskice's father was the exiled Russian revolutionary journalist David Soskice; his mother Juliet Hueffner was the daughter of Catherine Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, and so granddaughter of artist Ford Madox Brown, niece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and sister of Ford Madox Ford.
Soskice was educated at the Froebel Demonstration School, St Paul's School, London, and Balliol College, Oxford. He studied law and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1926. He served in the British Army with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during World War II.[1]
He served first in east Africa and then, as political welfare executive, in Cairo. Later he worked with the Special Operations Executive in London.[2]
His son, David Soskice, is an economist.
Political career
Following the war, he was elected to parliament as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Birkenhead East in the 1945 general election, and became Solicitor General,[3] receiving the customary knighthood,[4] in the government of Clement Attlee, serving in that office throughout Attlee's government. He was also, briefly, UK delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. As Solicitor General, Soskice was viewed as an important advocate for the government in the House of Commons. His constituency was abolished in the 1950 election, when he unsuccessfully fought Bebington, but he was soon returned to the House of Commons at a by-election in the Sheffield Neepsend constituency, where the sitting MP Harry Morris stood down to make way for Soskice. In April 1951, he became Attorney General.
In 1952, Soskice joined the shadow cabinet, and his fortunes rose in 1955 with the election of his close ally Hugh Gaitskell as party leader, although he continued his legal practice as well. His Sheffield Neepsend constituency was abolished for the 1955 general election, but in 1956 he won a by-election in the Newport seat in Monmouthshire that he would hold until he retired.
When Labour returned to government in 1964 under Harold Wilson, Soskice became Home Secretary. In this office he did not impress Wilson – he was in poor health, and he botched the response to an electoral boundary change dispute in Northamptonshire and accepted weakening amendments to the Race Relations Act of 1965.
In December 1965, Soskice was relieved of his Home Office responsibilities and made Lord Privy Seal. He had, though, ensured Government support for Sydney Silverman's Private Members Bill, passed on 28 October 1965, which suspended the death penalty in the United Kingdom for five years (except for treason). This reform is sometimes erroneously included with the Jenkins reforms which followed. In fact when the death penalty for murder was finally abolished in 1969,[5] James Callaghan was Home Secretary.
In 1966, Soskice retired, and was created a life peer as "Baron Stow Hill", of Newport in the County of Monmouth on 7 June 1966.[6] Stow Hill is a steep hill in Newport, which runs from the city centre up to St. Woolos Cathedral.
- According to Yes, Minister co-writer Antony Jay, the case of Timothy Evans (who was wrongfully hanged for the murder of his wife and daughter) was part of the inspiration for the television satire because of Soskice's refusal to reopen the case despite having himself appealed for an inquiry while in opposition.[7]
Arms
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References
- ^ "No. 35040". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 January 1941. p. 247.
- ^ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ "No. 37222". The London Gazette. 14 August 1945. p. 4135.
- ^ "No. 37243". The London Gazette. 28 August 1945. p. 4345.
- ^ The abolition of hanging in Britain
- ^ "No. 44014". The London Gazette. 7 June 1966. p. 6598.
- ^ Jay, Antony (22 May 1980). "Informed Sources". London Review of Books. 02 (10). Retrieved 6 May 2020.
- ^ Debrett's Peerage. 1973.
- ^ Mimnermus, fragment 2: Ἡμεῖς δ’ οἷά τε φύλλα
External links
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Frank Soskice
- Parliamentary Archives, Stow Hill Papers
