Saturday, June 10, 2023

J.W. Logan was the first MP to hold both the Chiltern Hundreds and the Manor of Northstead

Despite what disaffected Conservative MPs are announcing, you cannot resign from the House of Commons.

Wikipedia explains:

To circumvent this prohibition, MPs who wish to step down are instead appointed to an "office of profit under the Crown", which disqualifies them from sitting in Parliament. 

For this purpose, a legal fiction is maintained where two unpaid offices are considered to be offices of profit: Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, and Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead.

But only one MP, to the best of my knowledge, has held both these offices.

Step forward this blog's hero J.W. Logan, who was Liberal MP for Harborough 1891-1904 and 1910-16.

His health was never the same after an accident in the hunting field, which was why he twice resigned his seat.

On the first occasion he applied to be Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead and on the second to be Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

Which, unless you know different, makes Paddy Logan the only MP to have held both these offices of profit under the crown.

Later. David Boothroyd has come up with two more MPs who have held both offices:

William Hall Walker - CH 3 December 1915, MN 18 August 1919

Sir Herbert Robin Cayzer - CH 27 November 1922, MN 29 June 1939

So Logan was the first, but not the only, MP to do so.

No comments:

Post a Comment