Henry Paul Guinness Channon, Baron Kelvedon, (9 October 1935 – 27 January 2007) was Conservative MP for Southend West for 38 years, from 1959 until 1997. He served in various ministerial offices, and was a Cabinet minister for 3½ years, as President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from January 1986 to June 1987, and then as Secretary of State for Transport to July 1989.
Early life
Channon was the only child of Sir Henry "Chips" Channon, the politician and diarist, and Lady Honor Channon, eldest daughter of Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh. His family were well connected: his father's dearest friend was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia; he received a toy panda from King Edward VIII in the run up to the abdication; and he was friends with the Duke of Kent, who was born on the same day, from childhood. He was evacuated to live with the Astor family during the Second World War. He was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association.
Parliamentary career
While still a second-year undergraduate at Oxford, Channon was elected at the by-election for Southend West in January 1959 at the age of 23. The seat had connections with his family since 1912, when his grandfather, Rupert Guinness, became MP for South East Essex. Guinness became MP for the new seat of Southend in 1918. When Guinness succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Iveagh in 1927, the seat was won by his wife, Gwendolen Guinness, Countess of Iveagh, who remained MP for Southend until she retired in 1935. She, in turn, was replaced by her son-in-law, Henry "Chips" Channon, who kept the seat until it was divided in 1950, and who then represented one of the seats that replaced it, Southend West, until his death in October 1958. and then to R. A. Butler from 1961 to 1964 (while Butler was Home Secretary, First Secretary of State and then Foreign Secretary).
Transport Secretary
Channon was appointed Secretary of State for Transport on 13 June 1987. His tenure as Transport Secretary was blighted by several major transport disasters: 31 died in the King's Cross fire on 18 November 1987; 35 were killed when three trains crashed near Britain's busiest railway station in the Clapham Junction rail crash on 12 December 1988; 270 died when Pan Am Flight 103 was brought down by a bomb over Scottish town of Lockerbie in the Lockerbie Disaster on 21 December 1988; and 44 died when a British Midland plane crashed beside the M1 motorway in the Kegworth air disaster on 8 January 1989. He was roughly treated in the House of Commons by Labour's transport spokesman, John Prescott, who pilloried him for underinvestment in the rail network, and for taking a family holiday to Mustique shortly after the Lockerbie disaster.</blockquote>
Channon was replaced by Cecil Parkinson on 24 July 1989.
Backbenches and retirement
Channon harboured hopes of becoming the fourth member of his family to become Speaker of the House of Commons, named after the family's house at Kelvedon Hall. The coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure.
Ancestry
References
External links
- Kelvedon Hall
- As a baby, in LIFE magazine, March 1, 1937
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