Prime Minister Clement Attlee Preceded by Office Created Preceded by Philip Noel-Baker Succeeded by Office Abolished | Succeeded by William Sidney Name Arthur Baron Prime Minister Clement Attlee | |
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Arthur Henderson, Baron Rowley, PC (27 August 1893 – 28 August 1968) was a British Labour Party politician.
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Arthur Henderson was the son of Arthur Henderson, who was Leader of the Labour Party between 1908 and 1910, 1914–17 and 1931–1932.
Parliament
Henderson was first elected to the House of Commons at the 1923 general election, as Member of Parliament (MP) for the South Wales seat of Cardiff South. He lost his seat at the 1924 general election to the Conservative Arthur Evans, but won it back at the 1929 general election.
When Labour split at the 1931 election over Ramsay Macdonald's formation of a National Government, Henderson was one of the many Labour MPs to lose their seats. Evans was re-elected, and held the seat until the 1945 election, when he lost to future Prime Minister James Callaghan.
Henderson returned to Parliament at the 1935 general election, for the English constituency of Kingswinford in Staffordshire. He held that seat until its abolition for the 1950 general election, when he was elected for the new seat of Rowley Regis and Tipton, on the other side of Dudley. He was re-elected in Rowley Regis until his retirement from the Commons at the 1966 election. He was created a life peer on 27 May 1966 as Baron Rowley, of Rowley Regis in the County of Staffordshire. He died two years later, the day after his 75th birthday.
In government
In the World War II coalition government, he served as Under-Secretary of State for War from 1942 to 1943, and then as Financial Secretary to the War Office from 1943 until the coalition was dissolved in 1945 at the end of the war.
The 1945 general election saw Labour returned to government with a huge majority, and Henderson was appointed as junior minister at the India Office, with the title of Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma. When India gained its independence in 1947, the India Office was abolished, and Henderson was appointed as a Privy Counsellor and promoted to Secretary of State for Air, the ministry with responsibility for the Royal Air Force. He retained that post until Labour's defeat at the 1951 general election.
In popular culture
Henderson appeared as a contestant on the game show, "What's My Line?" on 6 October 1957.