Henry Benson, Baron Benson

Henry Alexander Benson, Baron Benson GBE (2 August 1909 – 5 March 1995) was a British accountant best known as a partner of Coopers & Lybrand, an advisor to the Bank of England, his work organising the accountancy profession as president of Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales and for the part he played in various Royal Commissions.

He was born in Johannesburg to Alexander Benson and his wife Florence Cooper, the daughter of Francis Cooper of Cooper Brothers & Co. Benson was educated initially in South Africa before moving to the United Kingdom in 1926, where he started training as an accountant with Cooper Brothers. After qualifying in 1932 he continued to work there, and became a salaried partner two years later at the age of 25. Following the outbreak of the Second World War Benson joined the Grenadier Guards as a second lieutenant, and was seconded to the Special Operations Executive in 1942 and then to the Ministry of Supply in 1944.

Benson helped build Coopers into an important international audit and accountancy firm as Coopers & Lybrand, and was the first living non-American elected to the Accounting Hall of Fame. He is known within the legal profession for his work on the Benson Commission, the report of which was one of the precursors of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990.

Early life Benson was born on 2 August 1909 in Johannesburg to Alexander Benson, a solicitor, and his wife Florence Cooper, daughter of Francis Cooper, one of the founders of Coopers & Lybrand. He was educated at Parktown Boys' High School where he Matriculated in 1925. During a visit to London when he was 14, Benson and his mother had a meeting at Cooper Brothers, at which the partners made Benson an offer of employment as soon as he left school. He took up the offer in October 1926, and began as an articled clerk. Benson qualified as an Associate Chartered Accountant in 1932, coming eleventh in the intermediate examination and fourth in the final examination out of 1088 candidates.

After the start of the Second World War in 1939 Benson became a second lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards thanks to the influence of his uncle D'Arcy Cooper and Viscount Trenchard. He served as its vice-president from 1965 to 1966, when he became president. Benson became its first chairman in 1973, and was initially meant to retire after a year before he was persuaded to stay on until 1976.

Later in the 1960s Benson chaired a Committee of Enquiry for The Jockey Club into the UK's horse-racing industry. Its report was published in June 1968.

In July 1967 Benson was appointed chairman of a committee to review the management and organisation of the National Trust. The Benson report, published eighteen months later, recommended devolving management to the regions, introducing stringent financial controls and improving public access.

In 1976 he became chairman of the Royal Commission on Legal Services, which became known as the Benson Commission due to his involvement. and after three years produced a report "meticulously researched and backed by statistics, of the services given by the legal profession; it swept aside all cobwebs and displayed a deep understanding of all aspects of the framework and practices of the law". upheld the idea that a split profession (one with both solicitors and barristers, in contrast to a fused profession) and also rejected the suggestion to allow solicitors rights of audience in the High Court.

Despite this it contained several organisational suggestions for a profession with little in the way of straightforward organisation, such as a Council of Legal Services to advise the Lord Chancellor and a single unified body for barristers, rather than having both the Inns of Court and the Bar. and was promoted to a Knight Grand Cross (GBE) in the 1971 New Year Honours. He had also received a knighthood in the 1964 New Year Honours, the honour being conferred by the Duke of Edinburgh on 13 March 1964.

On 2 February 1981 he was created a life peer as Baron Benson, of Drovers in the County of West Sussex.

He became treasurer of the Open University in 1975 and a trustee of the Times Trust in 1967.

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