Sir George Roland Chetwynd, CBE (14 May 1916 – 2 September 1982) was a British lecturer, politician and public servant. He defeated Harold Macmillan in order to get elected as a Member of Parliament, but later left Parliament to become Director of the North East Development Council for five years in the 1960s. Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire (Military division) The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by King George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions; in decreasing order of seniority... May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... Year 1916 (MCMXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... September 2 is the 245th day of the year (246th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy, usually within an institution of the government. ... Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ...

Education

Chetwynd was the son of a miner, and was brought up in north Warwickshire. An academically gifted child, he passed the Eleven plus and attended Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Atherstone; he then won a place at King's College, London where he obtained a BA (Hons.) in History and a postgraduate scholarship in the same subject. He joined the Labour Party in 1936 and earned a living by being a lecturer for the Workers Educational Association. This article is about mineral extraction. ... A detailed map Stratford-upon-Avon Kenilworth Castle Warwickshire (pronounced //, //, or //) is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in central England. ... The Eleven Plus or Transfer Test was an examination which was given to students in their last year of primary education in the United Kingdom under the Tripartite System. ... Atherstone is a town in Warwickshire, England. ... Kings College London (often abbreviated to KCL) in London is one of the largest colleges in the federal University of London, with 19,500 registered students. ... Bachelor of Arts (B.A., BA or A.B.), from the Latin Artium Baccalaureus is an undergraduate bachelors degree awarded for either a course or a program in the liberal arts or the sciences, or both. ... The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in the United Kingdom. ... The Workers Educational Association (WEA) is a British voluntary organisation, active in the field of adult education. ...

Wartime service

In 1940, during World War II, Chetwynd enlisted in the Royal Artillery. Two years later he was commissioned into the Royal Army Educational Corps where he trained troops; by the end of the war he held the rank of Captain. At the 1945 general election, Chetwynd fought Stockton-on-Tees as the Labour Party candidate against the rising Conservative minister Harold Macmillan; in one of the first results to be declared, he won with a majority of 8,664. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... RGA redirects here. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Clement Attlee Winston Churchill The United Kingdom General Election of 1945 held on 5 July 1945 but not counted and declared until 26 July 1945 (due to the time it took to transport the votes of those serving overseas) was one of the most significant general elections of the 20th... Stockton-on-Tees is a former constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. ...

Parliament

He made his mark in Parliament as a generally loyal supporter of the government, which was put under pressure from the left. He saw nothing inconsistent in membership of the United Nations while retaining strong armed forces for the United Kingdom. Although initially opposed to the continuation of national service in peacetime, he later came round to support it. He also spoke in favour of the Town and Country Planning Bill in 1947. In March of that year he appealed for greater efforts to build new factories on Tees-side. In March 1948 he signed an all party motion calling for a 'Council of Western Europe' to prepare the way for an organic federation of European states. Chetwynd was approached to sign a telegram to Pietro Nenni, a Communist-allied Italian socialist, but refused to have anything to do with it. The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ... National service is a common name for compulsory or voluntary military service programs. ... Prinicpal planning Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Town and Country Planning Act 1947 established the principles and mechanisms of the Plan Lead System. ... Pietro Sandro Nenni (February 9, 1891—Rome, January 1, 1980) was an Italian socialist politician, the national secretary of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and lifetime Senator since 1970. ...

Alliance with Hugh Dalton

With Chetwynd being particularly close to Hugh Dalton, when Dalton returned to government in May 1948 he chose Chetwynd as his Parliamentary Private Secretary. He was a strong supporter of nationalisation of the steel industry, which was a major employer in his constituency. He retained his seat through the 1950 and 1951 general elections, and made an easy transition into opposition after 1951. Edward Hugh John Neale Dalton, Baron Dalton, generally known as Hugh Dalton (1887-1962) was a British Labour Party politician, and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1945 to 1947. ... A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a junior role given to British Government MPs to act as the Parliamentary contact of senior Ministers. ... The United Kingdom general election in 1950 was the first general election ever after a full term of a Labour government. ... The 1951 election was held soon after the UK general election, 1950, which Labour won, but with an unworkable majority. ...

Opposition politics

His interest in European cooperation was marked by appointment as a delegate to the consultative assembly of the Council of Europe from 1952 to 1954. He was also a Governor of Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton and was Chair of the Governors in 1952. He was also a supporter of walking in the countryside (and went rambling with Hugh Dalton); he was a member of Nature Conservancy. In 1953, Chetwynd seconded a Private member's bill brought in by Samuel Viant which banned the sale of toy weapons; he argued that possession of these weapons "was a real incentive to development of the gangster mentality". The Palais de lEurope in Strasbourg Council of Europe Flag: used by the Council of Europe The Council of Europe (French: , German: ) is an international organization of 46 member states in the European region (with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia and Cyprus also extending into Southwest Asia and Russia into... Roehampton is a place in south London, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. ... A Private Members Bill is a proposed law introduced by a backbench member of parliament, whether from the government or the opposition side, to that legislature or parliament. ...

In the late 1950s Chetwynd became more concerned with economic development in his constituency. He sponsored a private member's bill in 1957 to make Stockton-on-Tees into a County borough, but was defeated by 201 to 95. He was also concerned over problems with nuclear power stations, although supportive of nuclear power and nuclear weapons generally. He opposed government spending on space research, regarding it as "an attempt to keep up with the Joneses". Stockton-on-Tees is an industrial town and port on the River Tees in north-eastern England. ... County borough was a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom to refer to a borough or a city independent of county administration. ... As of 2006, the United Kingdom has 23 nuclear reactors generating one-fifth of its electricity (19. ... The United Kingdom was the third country to test an independently developed nuclear weapon in October 1952. ...

North East development

After the 1959 general election, Chetwynd was made an opposition spokesman on Aviation. He pressed for investment in the aviation industry, including the construction of a supersonic airliner. However, in late 1961 he was applied for and was offered the job of Director of the North East Development Council, giving him responsibility for selling the region to overseas investors. Chetwynd resigned his seat and took up the appointment in January 1962. This United Kingdom general election was held on October 8, 1959, and marked a third successive victory for the ruling Conservative party, led by Harold MacMillan. ...

Shortly after his appointment Chetwynd began to 'sell' the North East region by giving a press conference for American firms where he argued that France was too politically unstable and West Germany had a labour shortage. Later that year, his annual report complained that the north east had received fewer government grants for industrial development than other regions. He objected to the London-centric economy of the United Kingdom and called for better transport infrastructure to redress it. The North East Development Council made several attempts to get a personal meeting with Harold Macmillan, then Prime Minister, in 1963. He often complained about the poor public image of the north-east. North East England is one of the regions of England. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The transport system in the United Kingdom is well developed. ...

Other public roles

From 1964, Chetwynd began to receive other public appointments, first as a member of the General Advisory Council of the Independent Television Authority and of the North-East Advisory Committee for Civil Aviation. He was put on the Northern Economic Planning Council in the same year. Chetwynd's interest in aviation was also used on the board of the British Overseas Airways Corporation from 1966 to 1974. In 1968 he was awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees. The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was a body created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of Independent Television (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. ... The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was the exclusive British state airline from 1939 until 1946 and the long-haul British state airline from 1946. ...

Business appointments

Chetwynd left the North East Development Council in February 1967 to become Deputy Chairman of the Land Commission. This appointment was part-time and allowed him to increase his business involvement: he was a Director of the Northern and Tubes Group of British Steel Corporation from 1968 and a board member of the whole British Steel Corporation group from 1970. He was Chairman of the Land Commission from 1970, an appointment intended to be for three years but actually lasted only one. British Steel is a large British steel producer, privatised in 1988 under the Thatcher government. ...

A Director of the Northern Industrial Development Board from 1972, Chetwynd decreased his involvement as the 1970s went on. He moved onto the Northern Regional Health Authority as Vice-Chairman from 1973 to 1976, and as Chairman from 1978. He was also Chairman of the Council of BBC Radio Cleveland from 1976 to 1978. He was given a Knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honours list. He was replaced as Chairman of the Northern Regional Health Authority in June 1982 by Norman Fowler shortly after criticising the Conservative government's conduct of a pay dispute, although this was said to have been a coincidence. From 1974 to 1996 the NHS in England was administered by Regional Health Authorities. ... BBC Radio Cleveland is the BBC Local Radio service for the English areas of Teesside, County Durham and some of North Yorkshire. ... The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals personal bravery, achievement or service to the United Kingdom. ... The Right Honourable Peter Norman Fowler, Baron Fowler, PC (born 1937) usually known as Norman Fowler before he was given his peerage, and probably now best known as Lord Fowler, is a British Conservative politician who was from 1981 to 1990 a member of Margaret Thatchers Cabinet. ...

References

• "Who Was Who", A & C Black
• M. Stenton and S. Lees, "Who's Who of British MPs" Vol. IV (Harvester Press, 1981)
• Obituary, The Times, 11 September 1982