29 Facts About Douglas Dodds-Parker

Sir Arthur Douglas Dodds-Parker was a British imperial administrator, a wartime soldier involved in irregular warfare, and Conservative politician.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was MP for Banbury from 1945 to 1959, holding three junior ministerial positions from 1953 to 1957.

Unlike Sir Anthony Nutting, who resigned as Minister of State at the Foreign Office, Dodds-Parker considered it his duty to remain in office even though he did not support the plan for Britain and France to invade Egypt under the pretext of separating the Egyptians from a prearranged invasion by Israel; he was sacked from government in the following year.

Douglas Dodds-Parker stood down from his seat in the House of Commons in 1959, but returned to Parliament as MP for Cheltenham from 1964 to 1974.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was born in Oxford, the eldest son of a surgeon.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was educated at Winchester College and then read modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Douglas Dodds-Parker joined the elite Sudan Political Service in 1930.

Douglas Dodds-Parker spent three years in Kordofan, the two years in the secretariat in Khartoum, as private secretary to the Governor-General, Sir Stewart Symes.

Douglas Dodds-Parker served in the field as an officer in Gideon Force, under Orde Wingate, organising "ungentlemanly warfare" against Italy in Ethiopia and helping Emperor Haile Selassie to return to Addis Ababa in May 1941.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was finally sent in late 1942 to Algiers, where he assisted with the negotiations for the armistice with Italy, and then in Apulia to command SOE operations in the Western and Central Mediterranean, in charge of operations in Italy and along the Adriatic, but to Poland and Eastern Europe.

Douglas Dodds-Parker ended the war at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Paris, with the rank of colonel.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was awarded the Legion d'honneur and Croix de Guerre for his efforts, and Mentioned in Dispatches.

Douglas Dodds-Parker married Aileen Coster in 1946, the American widow of his second cousin.

Douglas Dodds-Parker left the army to pursue a political career as soon as the war in Europe was over, and was elected MP for Banbury in the 1945 general election.

Douglas Dodds-Parker continued as MP for Banbury until he stood down at the 1959 general election.

Douglas Dodds-Parker declined an invitation to become Winston Churchill's Parliamentary Private Secretary, or to become a Conservative whip, preferring to serve on Parliamentary committees, but served on the executive of the 1922 Committee from 1951 to 1953.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was a junior Foreign Office minister from November 1953 to 1954, as a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, then a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Commonwealth Relations Office from 1954 to 1955, before resuming his junior ministerial position at the Foreign Office in December 1955.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was one of the hosts of Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev when they visited the UK in April 1956, and was in office during the Suez Crisis in October 1956.

Douglas Dodds-Parker opposed the plan for Britain and France to invade Egypt, under the pretext of separating the Egyptians from a prearranged invasion by Israel, but felt it his duty to remain in office, unlike Sir Anthony Nutting, who resigned as Minister of State at the Foreign Office.

The Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd was often absent from the House of Commons, and Douglas Dodds-Parker was forced to answer questions, unconvincingly, in his stead.

Douglas Dodds-Parker did not contest his seat in the 1959 general election.

Edward Heath took up the leadership of the Conservative Party after its 1964 election defeat, and Douglas Dodds-Parker returned to a degree of favour with the party leadership.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was a vice-chairman of the Conservative Party from 1964 to 1970.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was a delegate to the Council of Europe in 1965, and to the North Atlantic Assembly and the Western European Union Assembly.

Douglas Dodds-Parker led a delegation of MPs to China in 1972, the first visit organised since the Communist Revolution.

Douglas Dodds-Parker was knighted in 1973, after Edward Heath sent him to Strasbourg as part of the first British delegation in the European Parliament.

Douglas Dodds-Parker left the House of Commons at the October 1974 general election, but remained a Member of the European Parliament until 1975.

Douglas Dodds-Parker gave his political and personal papers to Magdalen College, Oxford in 1997.

Douglas Dodds-Parker died in London aged 97, and is survived by his wife, a son, and a stepson.