| Honorific-Prefix: | The Right Honourable |
| The Lord Stow Hill | |
| Order: | Lord Privy Seal |
| Term Start: | 23 December 1965 |
| Term End: | 6 April 1966 |
| Primeminister: | Harold Wilson |
| Predecessor: | Frank Pakenham |
| Successor: | Frank Pakenham |
| Order1: | Home Secretary |
| Term Start1: | 18 October 1964 |
| Term End1: | 23 December 1965 |
| Primeminister1: | Harold Wilson |
| Predecessor1: | Henry Brooke |
| Successor1: | Roy Jenkins |
| Order2: | Shadow Home Secretary |
| Term Start2: | 15 February 1963 |
| Term End2: | 18 October 1964 |
| Leader2: | Harold Wilson |
| Predecessor2: | George Brown |
| Successor2: | Edward Boyle |
| Order3: | Attorney-General for England |
| Term Start3: | 24 April 1951 |
| Term End3: | 26 October 1951 |
| Primeminister3: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor3: | Sir Hartley Shawcross |
| Successor3: | Sir Lionel Heald |
| Order4: | Solicitor-General for England |
| Term Start4: | 4 August 1945 |
| Term End4: | 24 April 1951 |
| Primeminister4: | Clement Attlee |
| Predecessor4: | Sir Walter Monckton |
| Successor4: | Sir Lynn Ungoed-Thomas |
| Office5: | Member of Parliament for Newport |
| Term Start5: | 6 July 1956 |
| Term End5: | 10 March 1966 |
| Predecessor5: | Peter Freeman |
| Successor5: | Roy Hughes |
| Office6: | Member of Parliament for Sheffield Neepsend |
| Term Start6: | 5 April 1950 |
| Term End6: | 6 May 1955 |
| Predecessor6: | Harry Morris |
| Successor6: | Constituency abolished |
| Office7: | Member of Parliament for Birkenhead East |
| Term Start7: | 5 July 1945 |
| Term End7: | 3 February 1950 |
| Predecessor7: | Henry Graham White |
| Successor7: | Constituency abolished |
| Birth Date: | 1902 7, df=yes |
| Death Date: | (aged 76) |
| Nationality: | British |
| Party: | Labour |
| Alma Mater: | Balliol College, Oxford |
| Spouse: | Susan Isabella Cloudsley Hunter |
| Birth Name: | Frank Soskice |
Frank Soskice, Baron Stow Hill, (23 July 1902 – 1 January 1979) was a British lawyer and Labour Party politician.
Soskice's father was the exiled Russian revolutionary journalist ; his mother Juliet Hueffner was the daughter of Catherine Madox Brown and Francis Hueffer, and so granddaughter of artist Ford Madox Brown, niece of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and sister of Ford Madox Ford.
Soskice was educated at the Froebel Demonstration School, St Paul's School, London, and Balliol College, Oxford. He studied law and was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1926. He served in the British Army with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry during World War II.
He served first in east Africa and then, as political welfare executive, in Cairo. Later he worked with the Special Operations Executive in London.[1]
His son, David Soskice, is an economist.
Following the war, he was elected to parliament as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Birkenhead East in the 1945 general election, and became Solicitor General, receiving the customary knighthood, in the government of Clement Attlee, serving in that office throughout Attlee's government. He was also, briefly, UK delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. As Solicitor General, Soskice was viewed as an important advocate for the government in the House of Commons. His constituency was abolished in the 1950 election, when he unsuccessfully fought Bebington, but he was soon returned to the House of Commons at a by-election in the Sheffield Neepsend constituency, where the sitting MP Harry Morris stood down to make way for Soskice. In April 1951, he became Attorney General.
In 1952, Soskice joined the shadow cabinet, and his fortunes rose in 1955 with the election of his close ally Hugh Gaitskell as party leader, although he continued his legal practice as well. His Sheffield Neepsend constituency was abolished for the 1955 general election, but in 1956 he won a by-election in the Newport seat in Monmouthshire that he would hold until he retired.
When Labour returned to government in 1964 under Harold Wilson, Soskice became Home Secretary. In this office he did not impress Wilson – he was in poor health, and he botched the response to an electoral boundary change dispute in Northamptonshire and accepted weakening amendments to the Race Relations Act of 1965.
In December 1965, Soskice was relieved of his Home Office responsibilities and made Lord Privy Seal. He had, though, ensured Government support for Sydney Silverman's Private Members Bill, passed on 28 October 1965, which suspended the death penalty in the United Kingdom for five years (except for treason). This reform is sometimes erroneously included with the Jenkins reforms which followed. In fact when the death penalty for murder was finally abolished in 1969,[2] James Callaghan was Home Secretary.
In 1966, Soskice retired, and was created a life peer as "Baron Stow Hill", of Newport in the County of Monmouth on 7 June 1966. Stow Hill is a steep hill in Newport, which runs from the city centre up to St. Woolos Cathedral.
| Escutcheon: | Argent perched on a triple mount in base Vert charged with a portcullis chained Or a dove wings expanded and in the beak a ship of olive Proper in chief two portcullises chained Gules. |
| Crest: | Between two wings addorsed Azure a paint brush and a quill pen in saltire Proper both tipped Gules. |
| Supporters: | On either side a pegasus Azure pendant from a chain about the neck a portcullis Or. |
| Motto: | Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ΗΜΕΙΣ Δ' ΟΙΑ ΤΕ ΦΥΛΛΑ|Hēmeis, d'oia te phylla|We, like the leaves[4] [5] |