Name Horace Baron Role Deputy Speaker | Preceded by Constituency Created Died September 3, 1986 Books Before Hansard Nationality British | |
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Previous office Speaker of the House of Commons (1965–1971) | ||
Horace Maybray King, Baron Maybray-King, PC (25 May 1901 – 3 September 1986) was a British politician who served as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950 until 1970 before becoming a life peer. Following the death of Harry Hylton-Foster in September 1965, King, who had served as deputy speaker for ten months, became the Speaker of the House of Commons. He was the first person from the Labour Party ever to hold this position.
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Early life
Horace King was born in Grangetown near Middlesbrough. His father John William King was an insurance salesman and Methodist local preacher. He was educated at Stockton Secondary School, Stockton-on-Tees, from 1912 to 1917 and never lost touch with these local roots. Horace attended King's College London and graduated with a first-class bachelor's degree in English.
Upon graduating in 1922 King worked as a teacher in Taunton's school in Southampton. He became head of the English department in 1927. He left in 1947 to become headteacher of Regent's Park Secondary School. While working as a teacher, King studied part-time for his Ph.D. His thesis was on the Folios of Shakespeare. He received his doctorate from King's College London in 1940. He had been excused from military service during World War II due to a duodenal ulcer. He and his family - first wife Victoria Florence (née Harris) and daughter Margaret - and Taunton's school were evacuated to Bournemouth from Southampton in 1940. Among the many pupils was 15-year-old Benny Hill. Dr King ("Doc") was always a keen musician - piano, piano-accordion and organ - and during the 2nd World War he formed various concert parties - "The V Concert Party" was one - which toured the smaller outlying military bases and entertained troops not often reached by ENSA.
He also raised funds by organising concerts to "buy" Spitfires and send aid to Russia. He is believed to have instigated fund raising in Hampshire by letters he wrote to the Hampshire Chronicle in July and August 1940. His "Spitfire Song" was recorded by Joe Loss and his Orchestra. He and a teacher colleague also were the first to translate "Lili Marlene" but were too slow to get their version to the song-publishing market.
Political career
King first stood as a Labour party candidate in the 1945 general election. Labour won with a massive landslide, but King was unsuccessful in his attempt to take the ultra-safe Conservative seat of New Forest and Christchurch. The following year he was elected to Hampshire County Council, on which he served until 1965 with only a single three-year break. His wife, Victoria Florence King, was also politically active - a town councillor and Mayor of Southampton in coronation year, 1953. She received a posthumous OBE.
Parliament
In the 1950 general election, King successfully fought the newly created Southampton Test seat, albeit with a very small majority. He successfully defended the seat in the 1951 election, which had been called after Labour's 1950 majority had proved unworkable. However, at the 1955 election, King switched his candidacy to the far safer neighbouring seat of Southampton Itchen, where he was re-elected until he left Parliament in 1971. During his time in Parliament he established links with the USA and Canada and lectured there on the British Constitution and Parliament. During one lecture trip in Georgia he and Dr Martin Luther King appeared on a local TV station together under the billing of "The Two Dr Kings". He was instrumental in gaining UK support for the UNESCO project of the raising of the temples at Abu Simbel after the flooding of the Nile by the Aswan dam. He promoted bills on corneal grafts and attempted to raise awareness in the 1960s of autism. A keen European, he served in the Council of Europe.
When Harold Wilson was elected as the first Labour Prime Minister for 13 years in 1964, King was selected as the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Deputy Speaker.
Speaker
On 9 September 1965 he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, a position he held until his retirement on 12 January 1971. While serving as speaker, King was responsible for the speeding up of question time and for changing the dress code to allow women MPs to wear trousers in the House of Commons chamber.
After the Commons
After leaving the Commons, he entered the House of Lords and was created a life peer as Baron Maybray-King of the City of Southampton on 2 March 1971, and went on to serve as a Deputy Speaker. He took the "Maybray" from his own middle name which was his mother Margaret's maiden name. He was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Laws) by the University of Bath in 1969. He is commemorated by his name having been given to an arched passageway leading to the site of the former primary school, off the High Street in the village of Norton-on-Tees County Durham, in which he lived as a child.
He was an active fraternalist with the Loyal Order of Moose in Great Britain. He was created an honorary Grand Governor in 1972 and served as Grand Governor in 1976-1977.
Family
He was married four times:
An unpublished biography/autobiography (A Boy Called Horace) is in the Parliamentary Archives.