Rolf Dudley-Williams

Sir Rolf Dudley Dudley-Williams, 1st Baronet (17 June 1908 – 8 October 1987), born Rolf Dudley Williams, was a British aeronautical engineer and Conservative Party politician.

Royal Air Force career Williams was born in Plymouth and is the son of master draper Arthur Henry Williams (1872-1922) and Minnie Jane (d. 1924), née Edgcumbe. He was educated at Plymouth College and joined the Royal Air Force cadet scheme in 1926 and studied at the Royal Air Force College at Cranwell. He was gazetted in 1928 and appointed a Flying Officer in 1930. From 1933, he was stationed at the Central Flying School, but the next year an injury saw him invalided out of the service. In 1941, he was appointed Managing Director, During the December 1954 controversy over Rudolph Cartier's television adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Williams was one of five Conservative MPs who jointly tabled a motion in the House of Commons that attacked "the tendency, evident in recent British Broadcasting Corporation television programmes, notably on Sunday evenings, to pander to sexual and sadistic tastes".

Williams' campaign to retain his seat at the 1955 general election was helped by Sir Frank Whittle, who had attempted to convert Williams to socialism while at Cranwell but was forcefully opposed to nationalisation after his treatment by Labour ministers in the 1940s. After his re-election, Williams advocated a hawkish approach to Egypt on the Suez issue, and supported police crackdowns on demonstrations for nuclear disarmament.

He served as a Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for War in 1958, and to the Minister of Agriculture from 1960 to 1964. He was created a baronet of the City and County of the City of Exeter on 2 July 1964.

Later career

After an adverse swing at the 1964 general election, Dudley-Williams lost his seat in 1966. Although taking some business appointments, he effectively retired from politics. However, in January 1975 during the Conservative Party leadership election, he joined with five other former Conservative MPs to write a letter to The Times urging Edward Heath to "now make way, so that the undoubted talents and leadership which he has kept muffled on the back benches should be given a chance to come to the fore". He is the grandfather of journalist Marina Hyde.

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