William Wedgwood Benn, 1st Viscount Stansgate

Background and education

Born in Hackney, Benn was the second son of Sir John Benn, 1st Baronet. He was given the name Wedgwood because his mother, Elizabeth (Lily) Pickstone, was distantly linked to Josiah Wedgwood of the pottery family. Benn was educated at the Lycee Condorcet in Paris and at University College, London.

Political career

In 1906 Benn was elected as a Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) for the St George's division of Tower Hamlets in east London, a seat he held until 1918. He served under H. H. Asquith as a Lord of the Treasury (government whip) between 1910 and 1915. In 1918 he was elected for Leith in Scotland. During the 1924–29 parliament, which was dominated by a Unionist majority, he worked closely with a group of radical Liberal MPs that included Frank Briant, Percy Harris, Joseph Kenworthy and Horace Crawfurd to provide opposition to the government. He sat until March 1927, when he resigned from the Liberal Party and from Parliament. In 1928 Benn re-entered parliament as Labour member for Aberdeen North. He was Secretary of State for India between 1929 and 1931 in Ramsay MacDonald's second government and was sworn of the Privy Council in 1929. However, he refused to follow MacDonald into the National Government coalition with the Conservatives, and at the 1931 election he lost his seat to John George Burnett. He returned to parliament in 1937 when he was elected for Gorton near Manchester.

In 1942 Benn was raised to the peerage as Viscount Stansgate, of Stansgate in the County of Essex. Two years later he was appointed Vice President of the Allied Control Commission which was charged with reconstructing a democratic government in Italy. In 1945 he became Secretary of State for Air in Clement Attlee's Labour government, a position he held until October 1946. He then sat as a backbench Labour peer until his death fourteen years later.

Military career

Although aged 37 at the time World War I broke out, on 8 December 1914, Benn was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Middlesex Yeomanry (Duke of Cambridge's Hussars). On 12 May 1916, he was appointed an observer flying officer in the Royal Flying Corps. On 8 July 1916, he was appointed as the commanding officer of a seaplane observer squadron, with the temporary rank of captain. Seeing service at Gallipoli, he was seconded to the Royal Naval Air Service on 17 May 1917. He was awarded the DSO on 4 June 1917 He was promoted to lieutenant on 10 July 1917 (seniority from 1 June 1916, and with full pay and allowances from 1 July 1917). On 12 July 1918, Benn transferred to the Royal Air Force, and was appointed a temporary staff officer 3rd class, retaining his temporary captaincy.

In September 1918, he was awarded the DFC. The citation read: "A gallant observer of exceptional ability. After setting out on a bombing raid, the Scout machines assigned to act as an escort became separated, and it then became necessary for the bombing planes to proceed on their task without support. Captain Benn's machine took the lead, followed by three other bombers, and succeeded in dropping his bombs (direct hits) on an enemy aerodrome. On the return journey the bombing machines were attacked by several enemy scouts, which were eventually driven away. Recently, this officer organised and carried out a special flight by night over the enemy's lines, under most difficult circumstances, with conspicuous success. He has at all times set a splendid example of courage" (21 September 1918). Also in September 1918 (night of 8–9 September) Benn was a pilot of Savoia-Pomilio SP.4 aeroplane, specially equipped for a parachute drop. This was the first military parachute/spy mission. The parachutist was Allesandro Tandura (1893–1937), who parachuted behind enemy lines in the vicinity of Piave river. In November he was awarded the Bronze Medal of Military Valour by the Italian Government. After his return to politics, Benn resigned his commission in the RAF on 28 December 1918, retaining the rank of captain.

Though in his early 60s at start of the Second World War, Benn returned to military flying, joining the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve as a war-substantive pilot officer (on probation) on 27 May 1940, with the service number 79452. He was promoted to flying officer (war substantive) on 7 December, and was confirmed in his rank on 27 May 1941. Promoted in 1942 to the substantive rank of flight lieutenant, he was promoted to group captain (war substantive) on 29 December 1942, skipping two ranks. Following his promotion to acting air commodore in 1944, he served as Director of Public Relations at the Air Ministry. At age 67 he flew several flights operationally as an RAF Bomber Aircrew gunner and is possibly the oldest man to do so. He resigned his commission on 3 August 1945, retaining the rank of air commodore.

Family

Lord Stansgate married Margaret Holmes, daughter of Daniel Holmes, in 1920. His eldest son Michael Benn was killed in the Second World War in 1944. Stansgate died at Westminster, London, in November 1960, aged 83, and was succeeded in the viscountcy by his second son, Tony Benn, who in 1963 succeeded in getting the law changed to allow him to disclaim the peerage.