| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Earl of Listowel | |
| Order1: | Governor-General of Ghana |
| Term Start1: | 13 November 1957 |
| Term End1: | 1 July 1960 |
| Monarch1: | Elizabeth II |
| Primeminister1: | Kwame Nkrumah |
| Predecessor1: | Kobina Arku Korsah |
| Successor1: | Office abolished |
| Office2: | Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries |
| Monarch2: | George VI |
| Primeminister2: | Clement Attlee |
| Term Start2: | 22 November 1950 |
| Term End2: | 26 October 1951 |
| Alongside2: | George-Brown |
| Order3: | Minister of State for the Colonies |
| Term Start3: | 4 January 1948 |
| Term End3: | 28 February 1950 |
| Monarch3: | George VI |
| Primeminister3: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor3: | New office |
| Successor3: | John Dugdale |
| Order4: | Secretary of State for Burma |
| Term Start4: | 14 August 1947 |
| Term End4: | 4 January 1948 |
| Monarch4: | George VI |
| Primeminister4: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor4: | New office |
| Successor4: | Office abolished |
| Order5: | Secretary of State for India and Burma |
| Term Start5: | 17 April 1947 |
| Term End5: | 14 August 1947 |
| Monarch5: | George VI |
| Primeminister5: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor5: | The Lord Pethick-Lawrence |
| Successor5: | Office abolished Himself |
| Order6: | Minister of Information |
| Term Start6: | 26 February 1946 |
| Term End6: | 31 March 1946 |
| Monarch6: | George VI |
| Primeminister6: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor6: | Edward Williams |
| Successor6: | Office abolished |
| Order7: | Postmaster General |
| Term Start7: | 19 October 1945 |
| Term End7: | 17 April 1947 |
| Monarch7: | George VI |
| Primeminister7: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor7: | Harry Crookshank |
| Successor7: | Wilfred Paling |
| Order8: | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma Deputy Leader of the House of Lords |
| Term Start8: | 31 October 1944 |
| Term End8: | 23 May 1945 |
| Monarch8: | George VI |
| Primeminister8: | Winston Churchill |
| Predecessor8: | The Earl of Munster |
| Office9: | Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal |
| Term Start9: | 16 November 1931 |
| Term End9: | 12 March 1997 Hereditary Peerage |
| Predecessor9: | The 4th Earl of Listowel |
| Successor9: | The 6th Earl of Listowel |
| Birth Date: | 1906 9, df=y |
| Nationality: | British |
| Alma Mater: | Balliol College, Oxford Magdalene College, Cambridge King's College London (PhD) |
| Spouse: | 1 Judith de Marffy-Mantuana (2) Stephanie Wise (3) Pamela Day |
William Francis Hare, 5th Earl of Listowel, (28 September 1906 – 12 March 1997), styled Viscount Ennismore between 1924 and 1931, was an Anglo-Irish peer and Labour politician. He was the last Secretary of State for India, as well as the last Governor-General of Ghana.
Lord Listowel was the eldest son of Richard Hare, 4th Earl of Listowel, and Freda, daughter of Francis Vanden-Bempde-Johnstone, 2nd Baron Derwent. John Hare, 1st Viscount Blakenham, a Conservative Cabinet minister, was his younger brother.[1] He was educated at Eton College, Balliol College, Oxford, Magdalene College, Cambridge and King's College London (PhD, 1932).
Listowel served as a lieutenant in the Intelligence Corps. He entered the House of Lords on the death of his father in November 1931, by right of the United Kingdom peerage of Baron Hare, and made his maiden speech in March of the following year.[2] He was a Labour Party whip in the Lords from 1941 to 1944, and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords and Under-Secretary of State for India and Burma from 1944 to 1945.
When Labour came to power in 1945 under Clement Attlee, Listowel was appointed Postmaster General, a post he held until April 1947, and was briefly Minister of Information between February and March 1946, when the office was abolished.
In April 1947 he entered the cabinet as Secretary of State for India and Burma. Prime Minister Clement Attlee, however, made all the government's major decisions regarding India.[3] After India gained independence in August 1947, his cabinet title became Secretary of State for Burma, working from the Burma Office, but in January 1948 this too was abolished, when Burma also gained independence, and Listowel then left the cabinet. He continued to serve under Attlee as Minister of State for Colonial Affairs from 1948 to 1950 and as Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from 1950 to 1951. In 1957, he was appointed Governor-General of Ghana, a post he held until 1960, when Ghana became a Republic. He was later Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords between 1965 and 1976. He remained an active member of the House of Lords, speaking for the last time in July 1995, aged 88.[2]
Apart from his career in national politics, Lord Listowel was a member of the London County Council for East Lewisham between 1937 and 1946, and for Battersea North between 1952 and 1957. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1946 and a GCMG in 1957.
Lord Listowel married three times.[4] Firstly he married Judith, daughter of Raoul de Marffy-Mantuana, on 24 July 1933. They had one daughter:
Lord and Lady Listowel were divorced in 1945. He married secondly Stephanie Sandra Yvonne Wise on 1 July 1958. They also had one daughter:
They were divorced in 1963 and on 4 October 1963 Lord Listowel married thirdly Pamela Mollie Day. They had two sons and one daughter:
Pamela, Countess Listowel, lives in Hampstead.[5]
Lord Listowel died in March 1997, aged 90, and was succeeded by his elder son from his third marriage, Francis.[1]