Frederick Corfield

Sir Frederick Vernon Corfield (1 June 1915 – 25 August 2005) was a British Conservative politician and minister.

Early life Corfield was the son of Brigadier Frederick Alleyne Corfield of the British Indian Army and Mary Graham Vernon. His father also owned the Chatwall estate at Cardington, Shropshire, which Frederick inherited on his father's death in 1939.

He was educated firstly at Brockhurst Preparatory School and passed examinations qualifying as a barrister.

After his return to England he was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1946 and spent a year in the army's Judge Advocate General's branch within England.

Political career In 1955 he became MP for South Gloucestershire. Shortly after becoming an MP he launched a private member's bill to improve compensation for compulsory land purchases. He received a second reading for his bill in February 1958, against government advice, and its general principles were incorporated in the Town and Country Planning Act of 1959.

He became secretary of the Conservative MPs' agriculture committee (1956–62), and chairman of its small farms subcommittee (1957–58). He also became parliamentary private secretary to Airey Neave. Under Harold Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home he held the position of Joint Parliamentary Secretary of Housing and Local Government (1962–4). He became an opposition spokesman on land and natural resources 1964–65 and subsequently an executive member of the 1922 Committee.

In 1970 Corfield was briefly Minister of State at the newly formed Department of Trade and Industry under John Davies. He subsequently held the positions of Minister for Aviation Supply and Aerospace Minister (1970–2) where he was responsible for the cancellation of the Black Arrow rocketry programme but provided financial assistance to Rolls-Royce (whose Filton, Bristol factory was within his constituency) when it ran into difficulties that hampered its defence commitments. This help included the nationalisation of the strategically significant aero-engine part of RR. He also presided over the first full scale roll-out of Concorde.

He returned to the backbenches in 1972 and did not contest his Gloucestershire seat in the general election of February 1974, having decided to stand down because of his disagreement with the government's then economic policies and the leadership of Edward Heath and a conviction - proved correct - that his party would lose the election.

Later career After this retirement from the Commons, Corfield, who had become a member of the Queen's Counsel in 1972, returned to legal pursuits, becoming a Bencher of the Middle Temple and sat as Recorder of a County Court from 1979 to 1987. He joined the committee of the British Waterways Board in 1974 and was its Vice-Chairman from 1980 to 1983. He took seats on the boards of various water companies, although in 1987 he opposed the universal privatisation of the nationalised water utilities that was introduced by the government of Margaret Thatcher. at Holy Trinity Church, Brompton in London. His mother wanted the wedding performed by her own cousin, the Dean of Canterbury, then Hewlett Johnson, but because of the couple's opposition to Johnson's pro-Communist politics, it was instead carried out by one of his father's relations, former Bishop Bernard Corfield.

He died in August 2005.