Ernest Meysey-Thompson

Ernest Claude Meysey-Thompson (18 February 1859[1] – 28 February 1944[2]) was a British Army officer and Liberal Unionist Party (later Conservative Party) politician. He sat in the House of Commons from 1906 to 1922 as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Handsworth.

Early life

Meysey-Thompson was the sixth son of Sir Henry Meysey-Thompson (later 1st Baron Knaresborough) and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Croft, Bt.[1] He was educated at Eton College and at Trinity College, Cambridge.[1]

In 1894, he married Alice Joicey, the daughter of John Joicey, a coalmine-owner and former MP from County Durham.[1]

Political career

At the 1900 general election, he contested the Buckrose division of the East Riding, where he lost by 91 votes (1.2%) to the Liberal candidate Luke White.[3]

However, his father retired from the Commons at the Dissolution of Parliament in January 1906, was raised to the peerage as Baron Knaresborough.[4] As a member of the House of Lords he was disqualified from the House of Commons. At the general election later that month, Ernest stood for his father's old constituency of Handsworth in Staffordshire. He held the seat with a majority of 4,771 votes (21.6%) over his Liberal Party opponent Herbert Leon, a former MP for Buckingham.[3] He was re-elected at both the January and December elections in 1910.[3]

The Liberal Unionists had merged with the Conservative Party in 1912, and at the 1918 general election Meysey-Thompson was re-elected as a Coalition Conservative.[5] He stood down from Parliament at the 1922 general election.[5]

Military career

Meysey-Thompson was an officer in the part-time Yeomanry, being commissioned into the Yorkshire Hussars on 22 August 1894,[1][6] promoted to captain on 21 May 1902,[7] and retiring with the rank of major on 30 September 1909.[8][9]

On the outbreak of World War I he was made a temporary major on 12 August 1914[10] and threw himself into raising units of artillery volunteers for Kitchener's Army. These included the 161st (Yorkshire), Brigade, Royal Field Artillery (RFA) (authorised 10 March 1915) followed by the 164th (Rotherham) (9 April), 168th (Huddersfield) (20 April), 175th (Staffordshire) and 176th (Leicestershire) (both 12 May) RFA brigades.[11][12] As 'Local Units',ie those raised outside the Army mechanism, these are comparable to the famous 'Pals battalions' of locally raised infantry.

On 24 June 1915 Meysey-Thompson was gazetted as a lieutenant-colonel to command 175th (Staffordshire) Brigade, RFA, in 34th Division. He was attached to an RFA brigade on the Western Front at Armentières to gain experience, and then returned to England to complete the training of 175th Brigade.[1][12] He was still raising new units, now for the Royal Garrison Artillery (RGA), who manned the heavier guns. These included the 144th (York), 147th (Leicester), 148th (Smethwick), 149th (Wakefield), 150th (Rotherham) and 157th (Leicester) Heavy Batteries, RGA.[12][13] By the time the 157th (Leicester) Battery was authorised (25 October), Mr C.A. Bury of Heworth Green, York, was listed as raising the unit on Meysey-Thompson's behalf because he was on service,[14] having been appointed on 1 October 1915 to command the Divisional Ammunition Column, RFA, for 5th Division on the Western Front.[12]

References
  1. Debrett's House of Commons, and the Judicial Bench. London: Dean & Son. 1901. p. 155. Retrieved 23 August 2012 – via Internet Archive.
  2. Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "C" (part 3)
  3. Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [First published 1989]. British parliamentary election results 1885–1918 (2nd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. pp. 424, 385. ISBN 0-900178-27-2.
  4. "No. 27871". The London Gazette. 5 January 1906. p. 1.
  5. Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [First published 1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 85. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
  6. London Gazette 21 August 1894.
  7. "No. 27435". The London Gazette. 20 May 1902. p. 3326.
  8. London Gazette 19 October 1909.
  9. Monthly Army List, various dates.
  10. London Gazette 19 February 1915.
  11. War Office instructions, September 1915, Appendix VII.
  12. Meysey-Thompson query at Great War Forum.
  13. J.B.M. Frederick, Lineage Book of British Land Forces 1660–1978, Vol II, Wakefield: Microform Academic, 1984, ISBN 1-85117-009-X, p. 700.
  14. WO Instruction No 235, 25 October 1915.
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