British politician
Geoffrey Clegg Hutchinson, Baron Ilford QC, MC, TD (14 October 1893 – 21 August 1974)[1] was a British soldier, a barrister and Conservative Party politician.
Background and military career
Born in Prestwich, he was the youngest son of the cotton manufacturer Henry Omerod Hutchinson and his wife Elizabeth Clegg.[2] He was educated at Cheltenham College and went then to Clare College, Cambridge, graduating with a Master of Arts in 1919.[3] In 1920 Hutchinson was called to the bar by the Inner Temple and went to the Northern Circuit.[4] He was nominated a Queen's Counsel in 1939 and was selected a bencher in 1946.[4]
With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, Hutchinson joined the Lancashire Fusiliers.[4] He was attached to the British Expeditionary Force until the end of the war and during this time was wounded.[4] In 1916 he was decorated with the Military Cross[4] and in 1933 obtained a captaincy.[5] He was promoted to major in 1937[6] and was awarded the Territorial Decoration in the next year.[4]
After the begin of the Second World War he was reactivated in 1940 and sent with the then Expeditionary Force to the Franco-Belgian border.[4] Hutchinson was allocated to the War Office in the following year, where he served as deputy assistant to the Military Secretary.[4] He retired in 1945 having reached the age limit[7] and was appointed honorary colonel of the 5th battalion of his former regiment in 1948.[8]
Political career
In 1931 Hutchinson joined Hampstead Borough Council, on which he sat for six years.[9] Subsequently, he served as president of the Non-County Boroughs Association until 1944 and chaired then the finance committee of the London County Council until 1949.[10] Hutchinson continued to represent Hampstead in the County Council until 1952.[9] He was chosen vice-president of the Association of Municipal Corporations in 1944.[9]
After unsuccessfully running for Gower in 1935, Hutchinson entered the House of Commons in 1937, retaining Ilford for the Conservatives at a by-election.[1][3] He represented that constituency until it was abolished in 1945,[3] That year he ran for the new seat of Ilford North and lost, but won it in 1950 and 1951.[1] In Parliament, Hutchinson became a member of the Select Committee on National Expenditure in 1942 and of the Speaker's Committee in 1944.[4] He sat in the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills in 1951 and again two years later.[4]
Hutchinson was almoner and governor of Christ's Hospital.[11] In 1947 he became director of the Colne Valley Water and three years later was president of the British Waterworks Association.[4] He worked in the same function for the Water Companies Association from 1951 and chaired the East Surrey Water Company from the subsequent year.[4] He resigned from Parliament in 1954, when he became chairman of the National Assistance Board, a position he held until 1964.[4][12] He received a knighthood in 1952[13] and he became a life peer with the title Baron Ilford, of Bury, in the County Palatine of Lancaster on 14 May 1962.[14]
Family
Hutchinson married Janet Bidlake, youngest daughter of Henry Frederick Keep in 1919.[2] He died in Cannes in France in 1974.[1]
