Anthony Barber was appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer by Edward Heath in 1970, and oversaw a major liberalisation of the banking system, replaced purchase tax and Selective Employment Tax with Value Added Tax, and relaxed exchange controls.
25 Facts About Anthony Barber
2.
Anthony Barber was forced to introduce anti-inflation measures, along with a Price Commission and a Pay Board.
3.
Anthony Barber was born on 4 July 1920 in Kingston upon Hull.
4.
Anthony Barber was the third son of John Barber and his Danish wife, Musse.
5.
Anthony Barber's father was company secretary and director of a Doncaster confectionery works.
6.
Anthony Barber had two brothers: Noel, who became a journalist and novelist, and Kenneth, who became company secretary of Midland Bank.
7.
Anthony Barber became an articled clerk in a solicitors' firm, but joined the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry shortly before the Second World War started.
8.
Anthony Barber was commissioned into the Territorial Army Royal Artillery in 1939 and served in France with a unit from Doncaster as part of the British Expeditionary Force.
9.
Anthony Barber was evacuated from Dunkirk in 1940, but later he became a pilot in the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit of the RAF.
10.
Anthony Barber ran out of fuel on a reconnaissance mission on 25 January 1942 and ditched near Mont St Jean, but was captured by the Germans.
11.
Anthony Barber was mentioned in dispatches for helping escapees from the prison camp at Stalag Luft III; he himself once escaped as far as Denmark.
12.
Anthony Barber then practised as a barrister from 1948, and specialised in taxation.
13.
Anthony Barber stood in Doncaster at the 1950 general election but lost by 878 votes.
14.
Anthony Barber contested the seat again at the 1951 general election and beat the incumbent Labour Member of Parliament, Raymond Gunter by 384 votes.
15.
Anthony Barber held a series of offices: Parliamentary private secretary to George Ward from 1952 to 1958; junior Government whip from 1955 to 1958; and Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan from 1958 to 1959.
16.
Anthony Barber then served four years as a junior minister in the Treasury, Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 1959 to 1962, and, following the "Night of the Long Knives" on 13 July 1962, as Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1962 to 1963.
17.
Anthony Barber became a Cabinet minister, as Minister of Health, in 1963, but lost his seat in the Commons in the 1964 general election to Labour's Harold Walker.
18.
The Conservatives won the general election in 1970, and Anthony Barber held his seat until the general election of October 1974, when he himself entered the House of Lords.
19.
Anthony Barber's appointment prompted Harold Wilson to remark that it was the first time that he had realised that Heath had a sense of humour.
20.
Anthony Barber was forced to introduce anti-inflation measures on the 6 November 1972, along with a Price Commission and a Pay Board.
21.
Anthony Barber did not seek re-election at the general election of October 1974, and left front-line politics.
22.
Anthony Barber was made a life peer on 6 January 1975 as Baron Barber of Wentbridge in the County of West Yorkshire, and served as Chairman of Standard Chartered Bank from 1974 to 1987, where future Prime Minister John Major was his personal assistant.
23.
Anthony Barber visited Nelson Mandela in prison, and was a member of the Franks Committee that investigated the Falklands War.
24.
Anthony Barber suffered from Parkinson's disease in later years, and died in Suffolk in 2005.
25.
Anthony Barber was married twice, with two daughters from his first marriage.