HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES COMMITTEE (Hansard, 31 January 1961)

THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR)
My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper. I hope that, in so doing, I may be allowed to refer briefly 94 to the recent death of Lord Terrington. I am sure that the whole House will have learned with very great regret of his death. As a Deputy Speaker of this House, and as a Deputy Chairman of Committees, he gave much service to the House. He was also frequently Chairman of Committees on Private Bills. But perhaps the most notable of his services, although at the same time the least conspicuous to your Lordships, was his position as Chairman of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills.
My Lords, as a chairman Lord Terrington possessed qualities innate and rare: qualities which many would envy but few could copy; qualities which I Think endeared him to all those who worked with him and who sat with him to those who appeared before him, and, indeed, to all his friends alike. And, my Lords, I cannot 'think of any Member of your Lordship's' House who had a wider circle of friends. I understand that those more qualified and with more authority than myself will speak of the position which Lord Terrington attained in public life. For myself, therefore, I shall be content to refer to, the very great assistance which he rendered to me. His advice and his counsel were always available, without stint and without reward, and I should just like to say how very much I miss them; and I am sure that all your Lordships will do likewise. I now beg to move the Motion on the Paper.

§ VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH
My Lords, I am very glad to follow the Lord Chairman of Committees in that very eloquent tribute which he has made to the memory of the late Lord Terrington. I confess that it came as quite a shock to me when I learned of his death. It seemed so recently, just before the Recess, that we had been on the usual friendly intercourse in the House. He was of such pleasant demeanour at all times to all people that, if only for those general personal qualities of association, he will be very greatly missed. The Lord Chairman was able to speak much more intimately than most of us can about the work Lord Terrington did for your Lordships' House as a Deputy Chairman of Committees and in 95 dealing with the other matters he mentioned. I can say, however, that I never heard a word of criticism of him as a Chairman of a Committee of this House.
If I may speak about Lord Terrington's general position in public life, then I can speak from rather more personal experience. I do not suppose there has been any more successful chairman of industrial inquiries into wages applications, and the like. For many years he was one of a panel who, for example, sat in the chair of tribunals inquiring into applications from employers or employed in the great Co-operative Movement with which my life has been associated. I know full well that, not only there but in other industries as well, the work that he has done, his tremendous power of conciliation—which is requisite of chairmen on all such occasions—has left its mark upon industry; and left its mark, too, on the memory of trade unionists in general, in the great service he has rendered to the community. I deplore his passing: I shall always miss him.

§ THE LORD CHANCELLOR
My Lords, I hope your Lordships will bear with me if, very briefly, I add my tribute. One of the greatest rewards of Parliamentary life lies in the friendships which begin in this building. These friendships flourish and have their being here on occasions which to the world seem public; and yet, as we know, they achieve an intimacy of mind and understanding which is as familiar to us as pit must be elusive to strangers. My Lords, such a relationship existed between Lord Terrington and so many of your Lordships that his absence from our midst must leave a gap which will never be filled. Indeed, so personal is our loss that it would be easy to forget the high and sustained public service which Lord Terrington gave to his country.
As the noble Viscount who leads the Opposition has reminded us, it is nearly forty years since Lord Terrington first acted as a mediator in industrial disputes a field in which he was later to achieve outstanding success, first as a member and then as Chairman of the National Arbitration Tribunal, and, later, of its successor, the Industrial Disputes Tribunal. It is a matter of history that while holding these important offices. 96 Lord Terrington was responsible for making nearly 3,000 industrial awards. That achievement was all the more remarkable because of its quality. As The Times observed, Lord Terrington's decisions were "obviously fair because they were hardly ever questioned or contested". Yet the whole work was done with a tiny staff.
My Lords, I have stressed his public service in the field of industrial arbitration, but we must not forget his most valuable work as Chairman of the Air Transport Advisory Council, and the equally important appointment of Chairman of the Air Transport Licensing Board.
Then, coming nearer home, as it were, I suppose that after the Lord Chairman of Committees I had as close an opportunity as anyone of appreciating Lord Terrington's invariably helpful and efficient labours for us as Deputy Speaker and Deputy Chairman of Committees. Speaking for myself, I could hardly have had a more loyal or willing supporter. I must pay tribute, too, as the Lord Chairman did, to his patient and successful work as Chairman of the Committee on Consolidation Bills, for which many users of the Statute Book have cause to be grateful to him.
But, my Lords, I come back to the debt which we owe him simply for his presence among us. He could show, and we could see, his evident interest in every personality in this House and his enjoyment of the changing events of our daily round. We shall remember him for his shrewdness, for his kindness, and for a directness of speech full of quick humour, yet utterly devoid of malice, which made his company a delight to us all. My Lords, the deep sense of our own personal loss enables us to appreciate in some degree the severity of the blow sustained by his widow and his family, to whom we now tender our most sincere sympathy.

LORD REA
My Lords, with the permission of the House, may I add my own few sad words in tribute to the late Lord Terrington? I think your Lordships well know that his chief interest, or one of his chief interests, was his service to this House, both official and unofficial. I am not going again over the ground which has been so ably covered by speakers before me about his public 97 position and achievements; but I should like to say a word or two about him as we knew him here. Your Lordships will have noticed that he seldom took part in controversial debates, or indeed in any public debate; and he was seldom seen in a Division Lobby. That, as your Lordships will know, was due to his conscience, knowing that he held positions both inside and outside this Chamber where he had to be scrupulously impartial and not disclose inclinations or views in any way which might seem to be prejudicial to any positions which he held. But, at the same time, I must record that he was a faithful, consistent and valuable member of the Liberal Party, which I have the honour to lead in your Lordships' House. These Benches miss very deeply his benign presence, where he could be seen almost every Sitting day of your Lordships' House.
It is rather distressing to refer in public to the qualities and characteristics of personal friends, but this is an occasion when I feel absolved from the responsibility of so doing. Many of us have a large circle of friends and a larger circle of acquaintances. In the case of Horace Terrington, it seems to me that his circle of friends overflowed into what might be acquaintanceship with most of us to an extraordinarily large extent. I think there can be no noble Lord or Lady who has sat as a regular attender in this Chamber who did not know him personally as a friend and admire him—I might almost say love him. Although I have no authority to say this, I am sure that I speak also for the officials of the House, and, beyond that, even for the staff.
As the noble and learned Viscount has said, in this Second Chamber of ours there is an indescribable element of some sort of co-operative good will, when we are not figuratively tearing at each other's political throats. I have noticed, in my comparatively short time in your Lordships' House—some twelve or thirteen years—that there is usually a handful of noble Lords in whom this atmosphere is particularly noticeable and to whom we owe a great deal for keeping it alive and refreshed. I think that that applies in very great degree to Horace Terrington, whose presence we shall so very much miss.
98 My Lords, we mourn a man of kindly influence and of great value to us all. I would join with the Lord Chancellor in extending to his family our most sincere sympathy; and for ourselves, we have all lost a wise counsellor and a good friend.

§ VISCOUNT HAILSHAM
My Lords, I am sure that the House will agree with me that we have been right to utilise this Motion for what would otherwise have been an exception to our general rule, in order to pay public tribute to the late Lord Terrington, whose services, both to the country at large and to your Lordships' House in particular, have been so outstanding. I wish to do no more than associate myself most warmly with the tributes that have been paid, and to join other noble Lords in sending my deep sympathy to his family.

LORD SALTOUN
My Lords, I think that somebody on the Back Benches ought to join in this tribute in order to say how much we on the Back Benches feel we owed to Lord Terrington. If I may, I would put in an additional word about something which I think he himself would have liked to feel was mentioned; that is, the loyalty which he always had and expressed to his own College—New College. Nobody at New College ever came into your Lordships' House without a really warm reception from him and without feeling that he had found a brother. I think that Lord Terrington would have wished his loyalty to New College to be mentioned on this occasion.

§ LORD BEVERIDGE
My Lords, I am sorry not to have intervened before, because I think that I am entitled to say that I knew the services and value of the late Lord Terrington long before almost any Member of your Lordships' House would have known them—that is to say, during World War I, when, particularly in the Ministry of Food, he became one of the most valuable servants of the State that we had in that great crisis. I am not going into details, but I will say that his coming to the Ministry of Food when I was dealing with it—he was brought in by Lord Rhondda—to take a place which was of great difficulty, was one of the greatest services that any man could have rendered the country at a time of great uncertainty, in 1914 and 99 onwards. I think that that should be recorded, and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for having recorded this in regard to him.