Horace King, Baron Maybray-King

For the football player of the same name see Horace King (football player).

Horace Maybray King, Baron Maybray-King, PC (25 May 1901 – 3 September 1986), was a British politician who served as a Labour Member of Parliament (MP) from 1950 until 1970 before becoming a life peer. Following the death of Harry Hylton-Foster in September 1965, King, who had served as deputy speaker for ten months, became the Speaker of the House of Commons. He was the first person from the Labour Party ever to hold this position.

Horace King was born in Grangetown near Middlesbrough. His father John William King was an insurance salesman and Methodist lay preacher. He was educated at Stockton Secondary School (Stockton-on-Tees) from 1912 to 1917 and never lost touch with these local roots. Horace attended King's College London and graduated with a first-class degree in English. Upon graduating in 1922 Mr King worked as a teacher in Taunton's school in Southampton. He became head of the English department in 1927. He left in 1947 to become headteacher of Regent's Park Grammar in 1947. Whilst working as a teacher, King studied part-time for his Ph.D. His thesis was on the Folios of Shakespeare. He received his doctorate from King's College in 1940. He had been excused from military service during World War II due to a duodenal ulcer. He and his family - wife Victoria Florence (nee Harris); daughter Margaret - and Taunton's school were evacuated to Bournemouth from Southampton in 1940. Among the many pupils was 15 year old Benny Hill. Dr King "Doc" was always a keen musician - piano;piano-accordion and organ - and during the 2nd World War he formed various concert parties - "The V Concert Party" was one - which toured the smaller outlying military bases and entertained troops not often reached by ENSA. He also raised funds by organising concerts to "buy" Spitfires and send aid to Russia. He is believed to have instigated fund raising in Hampshire by a letters he wrote to the Hampshire Chronicle in July and August 1940. His "Spitfire Song" was recorded by Joe Loss and his orchestra. This is still available on HMV "Songs of the 2nd World War" Track 18. He and a teacher colleague also were the 1st to translate "Lili Marlene" but were too slow to get their version to the song publishing market.

Dr King first stood as a Labour party candidate in the 1945 general election. Labour won with a massive landslide, but King was unsuccessful in his attempt to take the ultra safe Conservative seat of New Forest and Christchurch. The following year he was elected to Hampshire county council, on which he served until 1965 with only a single three-year break. His wife - Victoria Florence King was also politically active - a town councillor and Mayor of Southampton in Coronation year 1953.She received a posthumous OBE.

In the 1950 general election, King successfully fought for the newly-created Southampton Test seat, albeit with a very small majority of the vote. He successfully defended the seat in the 1951 election, which had been called after Labour's 1950 majority had proved unworkable. However, at the 1955 election, King switched his candidacy to the far safer neighbouring seat of Southampton Itchen, where he was re-elected until he left Parliament in 1970. During his time in Parliament he established links with the USA and Canada and lectured there on the British Constitution and Parliament. During one lecture trip in Georgia he and Dr Martin Luther King appeared on a local TV station together under the billing of "The Two Dr Kings". He was instrumental in gaining UK support for the UNICEF project of the raising of the temples at Abu Simbel after the flooding of the Nile by the Aswan dam. He promoted bills on corneal grafts and attempted to raise awareness in the 1960s of Autism. A keen European he served in the Council of Europe.

When Harold Wilson was elected as the first Labour Prime Minister for 13 years in 1964, Dr King was selected as the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means and as the Deputy Speaker. Less than a year later he became the Speaker of the Commons, a position he held for five years before retiring in 1970. Whilst serving as Speaker King was responsible for the speeding up of Question Time and for changing the dress code allowing women to wear trousers in the House of Commons chamber. After leaving the House of Commons, he was promoted to the House of Lords as Baron Maybray-King, of the City of Southampton, in which he went on to serve as Deputy Speaker.He took the "Maybray" from his own middle name which was his mother Margaret's maiden name. After he was widowed he re-married 3 times. Firstly to Una (nee Porter) who predeceased him - Ivy (Divorced) and Shiela Maybray-King who survived him, returning to her home town of Stockton. An unpublished biography/autobiography of Maybray-King ("A Boy Called Horace")is in the Parliamentary Archives.