18 Facts About Victor Goodhew

Sir Victor Henry Goodhew was a British Conservative politician.

Victor Goodhew served as Member of Parliament for St Albans for 24 years, from 1959 to 1983, and was an early member of the Conservative Monday Club.

Victor Goodhew was called up to serve in the Royal Air Force from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939.

Victor Goodhew was demobilised in 1946, and became a director of the family company.

Victor Goodhew contested the parliamentary seat of Paddington North for the Conservative Party in the 1955 general election, but was unable to unseat the Labour incumbent, Ben Parkin.

Victor Goodhew was shortlisted in 1957 as a prospective candidate for Warwick and Leamington, the seat vacated by the retirement of Prime Minister Anthony Eden, but Sir John Hobson was selected ahead of him.

Victor Goodhew finally beat William Rees-Mogg to secure selection for the safer seat in St Albans in Hertfordshire, where he was elected Member of Parliament at the general election in October 1959.

In Parliament, Victor Goodhew served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ian Orr-Ewing, Civil Lord of the Admiralty, from 1962 to 1963, and then as PPS to Tam Galbraith, Joint Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Transport, from 1963 to 1964.

Heath and Victor Goodhew held opposite views on Africa, and it seemed that Victor Goodhew's career had little prospect of advancement.

Victor Goodhew was an early member of the Conservative Monday Club, formed to combat the influence of the Bow Group on the Government's African policies.

Victor Goodhew took part, with four other MPs, in a Club public meeting in January 1962 which affirmed support for Sir Roy Welensky and the Central African Federation, and Rhodesia, and criticised the policies of the then Colonial Secretary, Iain Macleod.

Victor Goodhew suffered a heart attack in October 1973 and had coronary bypass surgery; he resigned his post as a whip on medical advice.

Victor Goodhew was a House of Commons Commissioner from 1979 to 1983, Joint Secretary to the 1922 Committee from 1979 to 1983, and was Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Defence Committee from 1974 to 1983.

Victor Goodhew steered a Private Member's Bill to the statute book, to allow "death-bed" marriages to take place outside licensed premises.

Victor Goodhew was the son of Rudolph Goodhew of Mannings Heath, Sussex.

Victor Goodhew first married Sylvia Johnson in 1940, but divorced.

Victor Goodhew then married Suzanne Gordon-Burge in 1951, but divorced again in 1972.

Victor Goodhew was survived by his son, from his first marriage; his daughter, from his first marriage, pre-deceased him.