Noel Noel-Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton

Noel Edward Noel-Buxton, 1st Baron Noel-Buxton PC (9 January 1869 – 12 September 1948) was a British Liberal and later Labour politician. He served as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and between 1929 and 1930.

Background and education

Born Noel Edward Buxton, the second son of Sir Thomas Buxton, 3rd Baronet, he was educated at Harrow and at Trinity College, Cambridge.

Political career

In 1896, Buxton acted as Aide-de-Camp to his father during his time as Governor of South Australia. He served on the Whitechapel Board of Guardians and Central Unemployment Body, and was a Member of the Home Office Departmental Committee on Lead Poisoning.

During the First World War (1914–1915), he went on a political mission with his brother, Charles Roden Buxton, with the object of securing the neutrality of Bulgaria; in the course of this an attempt was made on their lives by a Turkish activist (October 1914), Hasan Tahsin, in which he was wounded and his brother was shot through the lung. After their return, they published a book describing the region and its recent history, The War and the Balkans (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1915). It begins with these words:

Buxton stood unsuccessfully for Ipswich in 1900. He was elected as Liberal Member of Parliament for Whitby in 1905, a seat he held until 1906. He was out of parliament until the January 1910 general election, when he was returned for Norfolk North. He joined the Labour Party in 1919 and in 1922 he successfully contested his Norfolk North seat as a Labour candidate. He continued to represent the constituency until 1930. When Labour came to power under Ramsay MacDonald in January 1924, Buxton was appointed Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, with a seat in the cabinet, and sworn of the Privy Council. He remained as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries until the government fell in December 1924. He resumed the post in 1929 (once again as a member of the cabinet) when Labour returned to office under MacDonald, and held it until 1930, when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Noel-Buxton, of Aylsham in the County of Norfolk. He changed his surname at this point to 'Noel-Buxton', so enabling that to be his title.

Buxton's publications include Europe and the Turks; With the Bulgarian Staff; Travels and Reflections, 1929; and he was part-author of The Heart of the Empire, Travel and Politics in Armenia, The War and the Balkans, Balkan Problems and European Peace, and Oppressed Peoples and the League of Nations.

Family

Lord Noel-Buxton married Lucy Edith Pelham Burn in 1914. She succeeded him as Member of Parliament for Norfolk North in 1930. Noel-Buxton died in September 1948, aged 79, and was succeeded in the barony by his son, Rufus. Lady Noel-Buxton died in December 1960.