Reginald Neville

Background and education

Reginald James Neville White was the elder son of James Sewell White, a barrister who became a Judge of the High Court of Calcutta, in India and who took the name Neville by Royal Licence in 1885. While the family seat was at Sloley Hall, Sloley, Norfolk, he was born in Bombay, British India, in 1863. He was later educated at Clifton College, Charterhouse School where he was a Scholar, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won the Winchester Reading Prize.

Legal and political career

Neville was called to the bar, Inner Temple, in 1887, following in his father's footsteps. He was appointed as Recorder, or part-time judge, of Bury St Edmunds in 1905, a position he held until 1943. In 1892 he first stood for parliament, contesting South Leeds, where he continued as the Conservative and Unionist candidate at the general elections of 1895 and 1900, and at a by-election in 1908. At the January 1910 election, he stood unsuccessfully in Wigan, but was finally elected as a Unionist Member of Parliament for Wigan at the second 1910 election, gaining the seat from a Labour member. He lost this seat back to the Labour Party in December 1918 (the 'Khaki Election'), and in 1923 stood unsuccessfully in South Leeds again, meeting his fifth defeat there. He was then selected as Unionist candidate for East Norfolk, where he was successful at the 1924 election, holding the seat until 1929. In that year he became a liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers.

In 1927, Neville was created a Baronet He was a member of the Carlton Club and the United University Club. He was Master of the Worshipful Company of Bowyers of the City of London 1928 to 1930.

Personal life

Neville died in April 1950, aged 87. He was succeeded in the baronetcy by his elder son, Lieutenant-Colonel Sir James Edmund Henderson Neville, 2nd Baronet MC, author of The War Letters of a Light Infantryman (1931), who also wrote under the pen-name of 'Gaid Sakit'.