Henry Strauss, 1st Baron Conesford
Quick Facts
Biography
Henry George Strauss, 1st Baron Conesford KC (24 June 1892 – 28 August 1974) was a British lawyer and a Conservative politician.
Background and education
Strauss was the son of Alphonse Henry Strauss, of London. He was educated at Rugby and Christ Church, Oxford, and was called to the Bar, Inner Temple, in 1919.
Political career
Strauss sat as Member of Parliament for Norwich between 1935 and 1945, for the Combined English Universities between 1946 and 1950 and for Norwich South between 1950 and 1955. He was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Attorney General, Sir Donald Somervell, between 1936 and 1942 and a government member as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Works between March and December 1942 and as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Town and Country Planning between 1942 and 1945, when he resigned from the government in protest at Churchill's treatment of Poland at the Yalta agreement. He was once again a government member as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade under Churchill between 1951 and 1955. The latter year he was raised to the peerage as Baron Conesford, of Chelsea in the County of London.
Lord Conesford became a King's Counsel in 1946 and a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1969. He was also a member of the governors of Norwich High School for Girls and a vice-president of the Girls' Day School Trust. He was well known for his speeches in which he complained about the improper usages of the English language, especially in the United States as can be seen in this Time Magazine article from 1957.
Personal life
Lord Conesford married Anne Sadelbia Mary, daughter of John Bowyer Buchanan Nichols, in 1927. He died in August 1974, aged 82, when the barony became extinct.