28 Facts About Kingsley Wood

Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was a British Conservative politician.

Kingsley Wood became a member of the London County Council and then a Member of Parliament.

When Winston Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, Kingsley Wood was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, in which post he adopted policies propounded by John Maynard Keynes, changing the role of HM Treasury from custodian of government income and expenditure to steering the entire British economy.

Kingsley Wood died suddenly on the day on which the new system was to be announced to Parliament.

Kingsley Wood was born in Hull, eldest of three children of the Rev Arthur Kingsley Wood, a Wesleyan Methodist minister, and his wife, Harriett Siddons, nee Howard.

Kingsley Wood's father was appointed to be minister of Wesley's Chapel in London, where Wood grew up, attending nearby Central Foundation Boys' School.

Kingsley Wood was articled to a solicitor, qualifying in 1903 with honours in his law examinations.

Kingsley Wood established his own law firm in the City of London, specialising in industrial insurance law.

Kingsley Wood represented the industrial insurance companies in their negotiations with the Liberal government before the introduction of Lloyd George's National Insurance Bill in 1911, gaining valuable concessions for his clients.

Kingsley Wood was first elected to office as a member of the London County Council at a by-election on 22 November 1911, representing the Borough of Woolwich for the Municipal Reform Party.

Kingsley Wood chaired the London Old Age Pension Authority in 1915 and the London Insurance Committee from 1917 to 1918, was a member of the National Insurance Advisory Committee from 1911 to 1919, chairman of the Faculty of Insurance from 1916 to 1919 and president of the faculty in 1920,1922 and 1923.

Kingsley Wood was knighted in 1918 at the unusually early age of 36.

Kingsley Wood was elected to Parliament as a Conservative in the "khaki election" of 1918.

When Baldwin succeeded Law in 1924, Kingsley Wood was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health, as junior minister to Neville Chamberlain.

Kingsley Wood's political standing was marked by his appointment as a civil commissioner during the general strike of 1926, and, unusually for a junior minister, as a privy councillor in 1928.

Kingsley Wood considered reconstituting the whole of the GPO, changing it from a government department to what would later be called a quango, and he set up an independent committee to advise him on this.

Kingsley Wood was a strong believer in publicity; he set up an advertising campaign for the telephone system which dramatically increased the number of subscribers, and he established the GPO Film Unit which gained a high aesthetic reputation as well as raising the GPO's profile.

The old financial rules, by which all the GPO's surplus revenue was surrendered to the Treasury had long prevented reinvestment in the business; Kingsley Wood negotiated a new arrangement under which the GPO would pay an agreed annual sum to the Treasury and keep the remainder of its revenue for investment.

When MacDonald was succeeded as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom by Baldwin in 1935, Kingsley Wood was appointed Minister of Health.

Kingsley Wood's job was to chair both the Home Policy Committee of the cabinet, which considered "all social service and other domestic questions and reviews proposals for legislation" and the Food Policy Committee, overseeing "the problems of food policy and home agriculture".

Kingsley Wood held this position for only a few weeks; the downfall of Chamberlain affected Wood in an unexpected way.

In May 1940, as a trusted friend, Kingsley Wood told Chamberlain "affectionately but firmly" that after the debacle of the British defeat in Norway and the ensuing Commons debate, his position as Prime Minister was impossible and he must resign.

Kingsley Wood advised Winston Churchill to ignore pressure from those who wanted Lord Halifax, not Churchill, as Chamberlain's successor.

Churchill became Prime Minister on 10 May 1940; Kingsley Wood was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer on 12 May.

Kingsley Wood was Chancellor, as Jenkins notes, "for the forty key months of the Second World War".

Kingsley Wood sought to head off inflationary wage claims by subsidising essential rationed goods, while imposing heavy taxes on goods classed as non-essential.

Kingsley Wood did not live to see it come into effect; he died suddenly at his London home on the morning of the day on which he was due to announce PAYE in the House of Commons.

Kingsley Wood was referred to in the book Guilty Men by Michael Foot, Frank Owen and Peter Howard, published in 1940 as an attack on public figures for their failure to re-arm and their appeasement of Nazi Germany.