John Heydon Stokes

Sir John Heydon Romaine Stokes (23 July 1917 – 27 June 2003) was a British Conservative politician and Member of Parliament.

Early life and career The son of Victor Romaine Stokes, a stockjobber, Stokes was educated at Haileybury College and Queen's College, Oxford. He stood for election as president of the Oxford University Conservative Association on a platform of support for appeasement and General Franco, but lost out by seven votes to future Prime Minister Edward Heath.

During World War II Stokes served in the Royal Fusiliers, rising to the rank of Major. He took part in the expedition to Dakar in 1940 and was wounded in North Africa in 1943. From 1944-6 he served as military assistant to Major General Edward Spears and latterly Sir Terence Shone in Beirut and Damascus.

He had little time for professional politicians. He argued that the backbenches in parliament needed more army officers, "more squires, landowners, and country gentlemen." He attributed the decline of deference in society to the demise of the officer classes from positions of influence. He was also a firm defender of the hereditary principle in the Upper House and wrote the foreword to a Monday Club booklet by Lord Sudeley entitled The Preservation of the House of Lords. In 1975 Stokes spoke against a Private Members Bill to abolish hereditary titles, which was defeated.

During the crippling strikes at British Leyland in the 1970s, Stokes suggested in the House that it might help the troubles there if a few of the ringleaders were taken out and shot.

Monday Club John Stokes was a long-standing (joined prior to 1970) member of the Conservative Monday Club. He was a main speaker at the Club's Halt Immigration Now! meeting in Westminster Central Hall in September 1972, calling for a halt to all immigration, the repeal of the Race Relations Act and the start of a full repatriation scheme, the meeting's formal resolution being delivered to the then Prime Minister, Edward Heath. He was one of the principal speakers at the Club's two-day conference in Birmingham in March 1975, the title of which was The Conservative Party and the Crisis in Britain.

Personal life

Stokes was married four times. He married firstly, on 23 December 1939 at All Souls Church, Langham Place, Barbara Yorke (died 1988), younger daughter of R. E. Yorke of Wellingborough, by whom he had one son and two daughters; he married secondly, on 21 January 1989 in Aylesbury Vale, Elsie F. Plowman (died 1990); he married thirdly, in 1991 in Aylesbury Vale, Lady (Ruth) Bligh, widow of Sir Timothy Bligh (who had been secretary to Harold Macmillan as Prime Minister), which marriage was dissolved in 1996; he married fourthly, in 1996 in the chapel of his alma mater, Queen's College, Oxford, Frances Packham, widow of Lieutenant-Commander Donald Packham.

Publications Stokes, John, Crusader '80, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.84, no.6, Nov/Dec 1980 edition, London. Stokes, John, The State of the Nation, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.86, no.2, April 1982 edition, London. Stokes, John, The Falklands Spirit, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.86, no.5, Nov/Dec 1982 edition, London. Stokes, John, The Church and the Bomb, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.87, no.3, July 1983 edition, London. Stokes, John, Politics and The Church, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.89, no.1, April/May 1985 edition, London. Stokes, John, An Issue Greater Than Party Advantage, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.90, no.1, Feb/March 1986 edition, London. Stokes, John, A Long and Glorious History, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.90, no.2, June/July 1986 edition, London. Stokes, John, The Condition of The People, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.91, no.1, March/April 1987 edition, London. Stokes, John, The Place of the Book of Common Prayer in the Fabric of The Nation, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.91, no.3, Nov/Dec 1987 edition, London. Stokes, John, A Quiet and Undemonstrable People, in the Primrose League Gazette, vol.92, no.1, April/May 1988 edition, London.