Bernard Braine

Who was Bernard Braine?

Bernard Richard Braine, Baron Braine of Wheatley, PC was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was educated at Hendon County Grammar School, and served with the North Staffordshire Regiment in the Second World War, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was a Member of Parliament for over forty years, representing constituencies in Essex.

At the 1950 general election, Braine was elected as MP for Billericay. When constituencies boundaries were revised for the 1955 election he was returned for the new South East Essex, and when that constituency was abolished for the 1983 general election, he was elected for the new Castle Point constituency, becoming Father of the House of Commons in 1987.

He was chairman of the National Council on Alcoholism, and was a member of the Parliamentary Groups on Human Rights and against abortion. He was knighted in 1972, and appointed as a Privy Counsellor in 1985.

Braine stepped down from Parliament at the 1992 general election, and in August that year he was made a life peer Baron Braine of Wheatley, of Rayleigh in the County of Essex. He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.