1. John Thomson Stonehouse was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician, businessman and minister who was a member of the Cabinet under Prime Minister Harold Wilson.
43 Facts About John Stonehouse
1. 2.
John Stonehouse is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974.
3.
John Thomson Stonehouse was born on 28 July 1925 in Southampton, the second son and youngest of four children of Post Office engineer and later dockyard engine-fitter William Mitchell Stonehouse, and Rosina Marie.
4.
John Stonehouse's father was local secretary of his trade union; Stonehouse joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen.
5.
John Stonehouse was educated at Taunton's School, Southampton, and served as a Royal Air Force pilot from 1944 until 1946.
6.
John Stonehouse stood unsuccessfully in Norwood at the 1949 London County Council election.
7.
John Stonehouse was first elected as the Labour Co-operative Member of Parliament for Wednesbury in Staffordshire in a 1957 by-election, having contested Twickenham in 1950 and Burton in 1951.
8.
In February 1959, John Stonehouse travelled to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland on a fact-finding tour in which he condemned the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia.
9.
John Stonehouse was promptly deported from Southern Rhodesia and banned from returning a year later.
10.
John Stonehouse served as a junior minister of aviation, where he was involved in the British Overseas Airways Corporation's order of Boeing 707 aircraft from the United States, against his own recommendation that they should buy the Super Vickers VC10, a British-made aircraft.
11.
In March 1968, John Stonehouse negotiated an agreement providing a framework for the long-term development of technological co-operation between Britain and Czechoslovakia providing for the exchange of specialists and information, facilities for study and research in technology, and such other forms of industrial co-operation which might be agreed.
12.
John Stonehouse's rise continued while in the Colonial Office, and in 1967 he became Minister for Technology under Wilson.
13.
John Stonehouse later served as Postmaster General until the position was abolished by the Post Office Act 1969.
14.
In December 2010, it was revealed that Margaret Thatcher had agreed to cover up revelations that John Stonehouse had been a Czechoslovak spy in 1980, as there was insufficient evidence to bring him to trial.
15.
Until the 2012 exposure of Ray Mawby, briefly a member of a Conservative government, John Stonehouse was the only Minister known to have been an agent for the former Eastern bloc.
16.
Aware that the Department of Trade and Industry was looking at his affairs, John Stonehouse decided that his best choice would be to flee the country.
17.
John Stonehouse was presumed dead, and obituaries were published in British newspapers despite the fact that no corpse had been found.
18.
In reality, John Stonehouse was en route to Australia, some 9,000 miles away, hoping to set up a new life with his mistress and secretary, Sheila Buckley.
19.
John Stonehouse visited Copenhagen with Buckley around this time and returned to Australia unaware that he was now under surveillance.
20.
The Australian police initially suspected him of being Lord Lucan, who had disappeared a fortnight before John Stonehouse, following the murder of his children's nanny.
21.
On his arrest, the police instructed John Stonehouse to pull down his trousers in an attempt to establish whether or not he was Lucan, who had a 6-inch scar on the inside of his right thigh.
22.
John Stonehouse applied for the position of Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds while still in Australia, but decided not to sign the papers.
23.
On 17 July 1975, John Stonehouse was extradited to the UK, escorted by Scotland Yard officers.
24.
John Stonehouse was remanded in Brixton Prison until August 1975 when he was released on bail.
25.
John Stonehouse continued to serve as an MP; on 20 October 1975 he made a personal statement to the House of Commons, stating his reasons for his disappearance, his first Parliamentary oration since his disappearance almost a year earlier:.
26.
On 4 April 1976 John Stonehouse attended a St George's Day festival hosted by the English National Party; he later confirmed he had joined the party, making Labour a minority government.
27.
John Stonehouse conducted his own defence on twenty-one charges of fraud, theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud, causing a false police investigation and wasting police time.
28.
On 6 August 1976, John Stonehouse was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud, and received a criminal bankruptcy order.
29.
John Stonehouse agreed to resign as a Privy Counsellor on 17 August 1976, becoming one of only three people to resign from the Privy Council in the 20th century.
30.
John Stonehouse tendered his resignation via the Chiltern Hundreds route from the House of Commons on 27 August 1976.
31.
John Stonehouse made acquaintance with Moors murderer Ian Brady, and the pair played chess together until Brady was transferred elsewhere.
32.
When his health deteriorated, John Stonehouse was moved to HM Prison Blundeston in Suffolk.
33.
On 14 August 1979, John Stonehouse was released early because of good behaviour and because he had suffered three heart attacks; he had the first on 18 April 1977, a second one four days later, and a massive heart attack on 13 August 1978.
34.
On 6 September 1978, John Stonehouse suffered a coronary ischemia attack which required him to spend three days in hospital.
35.
John Stonehouse underwent open heart surgery on 7 November 1978 which lasted for six hours.
36.
From January 1980, John Stonehouse was a volunteer fundraiser for the East London-based charity, Community Links.
37.
John Stonehouse joined the Social Democratic Party, which later amalgamated with the Liberal Party to become the Liberal Democrats.
38.
John Stonehouse wrote three novels and made numerous television and radio appearances during the rest of his life, mostly in connection with discussing his disappearance.
39.
John Stonehouse married Barbara Joan Smith in 1948, the marriage produced three children.
40.
On 25 March 1988, John Stonehouse collapsed on set during an edition of Central Weekend in Birmingham during the filming of a programme about missing people.
41.
John Stonehouse was given emergency medical treatment at the studio and an ambulance was called.
42.
John Stonehouse was diagnosed as having suffered a minor heart attack and kept in the city's general hospital overnight.
43.
John Stonehouse was cremated in Bassett Green, Southampton, on 22 April 1988.