John Whiteley (politician)

For other people named John Whiteley, see John Whiteley (disambiguation).

Brigadier John Percival Whiteley OBE (7 January 1898 – 4 July 1943[1]) was a British Army officer and a Conservative Party politician.

Born in January 1898 in South Africa,[2] Whiteley was commissioned into the Royal Artillery during the First World War, ending the war as a lieutenant. In 1926 he transferred to the Life Guards, retiring in 1928 and joining the 99th (Buckinghamshire and Berkshire Yeomanry) Field Brigade, Royal Artillery (Territorial Army) as a captain. He was promoted major in 1932.

He stood unsuccessfully at the 1929 general election in Birmingham Aston,[3] and entered the House of Commons eight years later when he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Buckingham at a by-election in 1937, after the sitting MP George Bowyer was elevated to the peerage as Baron Denham.[4]

When World War II broke out, Whiteley resumed military service.[5] He was active at Dunkirk,[5] and died in 1943, aged 45, when he was killed in a plane crash in Gibraltar, along with the Conservative MP Victor Cazalet and General Władysław Sikorski, the leader of the Polish government-in-exile.[5]

  1. ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "B" (part 6)
  2. ^ https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LV74-BDK/brigadier-john-percival-whiteley-mp-1898-1943
  3. ^ Craig, F. W. S. (1983) [1969]. British parliamentary election results 1918–1949 (3rd ed.). Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. p. 80. ISBN 0-900178-06-X.
  4. ^ Craig, page 296
  5. ^ a b c "Obituaries: Br. J. P. Whiteley, M.P.". The Times. 7 July 1943. p. 7.