Dennis Vosper, Baron Runcorn Explained

Dennis Forwood Vosper, Baron Runcorn TD PC (2 January 1916 – 20 January 1968) was a British Conservative Party politician.

Educated at The Leas, Hoylake, Marlborough College and at Pembroke College, Cambridge, he first worked with Wilson, Vosper & Coltart, Ships Store & Export Merchants, in Liverpool. He was commissioned into the Cheshire Regiment (Territorial Army) in April 1939 and served until the 1950s, reaching the rank of Major.

He was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Runcorn, Cheshire in 1950, holding the seat until 1964.

He held office as Conservative Whip, 1950–1954; as a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, 1951–1954; Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education, October 1954 – January 1957; Minister of Health, 1957, from which he resigned owing to illness in September 1957. He was Leader of the Parliamentary Delegation to West Indies, 1958. He returned to ministerial office as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, 1959–1960, as Minister of State for Home Affairs, 1960–1961; and as Secretary for Technical Co-operation, 1961–1963.

He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1957 and was created a life peer on 20 April 1964 as Baron Runcorn, of Heswall in the County Palatine of Chester.

He died in January 1968 aged 52.

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