Stephen King-Hall

{{Short description|British naval officer, writer, and politician (1893–1966)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| honorific-prefix = The Right Honourable

| name = The Lord King-Hall of Headley

| honorific-suffix =

| image = Stephen King-Hall in 1917.jpg

| caption = Stephen King-Hall in 1917

| birthname = William Stephen Richard King-Hall

| office = Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal

| term_start = 15 January 1966

| term_end = 2 June 1966

| office1 = Member of Parliament
for Ormskirk

| term_start1 = 27 October 1939

| term_end1 = 15 June 1945

| predecessor1 = Samuel Rosbotham

| successor1 = Harold Wilson

| birth_date = {{birth date|1893|1|21|df=yes}}

| birth_place = London, England

| death_date = {{death date and age|1966|6|2|1893|1|21|df=yes}}

| death_place = London, England

| spouse = Kathleen Spencer (until 1963)

| relatives = George King-Hall (father)

| party = Independent
National Labour

| allegiance = {{flag|United Kingdom}}

| branch = {{navy|United Kingdom}}

| serviceyears = 1914–1929

| rank = Commander

| unit = 11th Submarine Flotilla
HMS Southampton

}}

William Stephen Richard King-Hall, Baron King-Hall of Headley (21 January 1893 – 2 June 1966) was a British naval officer, writer, politician and playwright who served as the member of parliament for Ormskirk from 1939 to 1945.{{cite web |last1=Lundy |first1=Darryl |title=Sir William Stephen King-Hall, Baron King-Hall |url=http://www.thepeerage.com/p19150.htm#i191492 |website=The Peerage |publisher=thepeerage.com |access-date=8 November 2021}}

Early life and career

The son of Admiral Sir George Fowler King-Hall and Olga Felicia Ker; theirs was an artistic naval family, King-Hall's sisters Magdalen and Lou also being writers. He married Kathleen Amelia Spencer (died 14 August 1950), daughter of Francis Spencer, on 15 April 1919 and they had three children, Ann, Frances Susan and Jane.

He was educated at Lausanne in Switzerland and at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. He fought in the First World War between 1914 and 1918, with the Grand Fleet, serving on {{HMS|Southampton|1912|6}} and 11th Submarine Flotilla. He gained the rank of commander in the service of the Royal Navy in 1928, before resigning in 1929. He wrote several plays between 1924 and 1940, including Posterity accepted by Leonard Woolf for the Hogarth Essays. He joined the Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1929, having previously been awarded their gold medal for his 1920 thesis on submarine warfare.

Member of Parliament

He entered the House of Commons in 1939 as Member of Parliament (MP) for Ormskirk unopposed, standing as the National Labour candidate. He later changed his affiliation and continued to stand as an Independent, subsequently losing the seat to future Prime Minister Harold Wilson in the 1945 general election. During his term, he served in the Ministry of Aircraft Production under Max Aitken as Director of the Factory Defence Section.{{cite book |last1=Edgerton |first1=David |title=Warfare State: Britain, 1920-1970 |date=December 2005 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-67231-3 |pages=154 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-economic-history/article/abs/warfare-state-britain-19201970-by-david-edgerton-cambridge-and-new-york-cambridge-university-press-2006-pp-xv-364-3299-paper/4071777F96FBE77B97938A5EC878D571}}

In 1944 he founded and chaired the Hansard Society to promote parliamentary democracy. He presented a programme for children on current affairs on both BBC radio and television.

Life after Parliament and death

He was invested as a Knight Bachelor on 6 July 1954{{London Gazette |issue=40227 |date=9 July 1954 |page=4026}} and was created a Life Peer as Baron King-Hall of Headley on 15 January 1966.{{London Gazette |issue=43877 |date=18 January 1966 |page=666}} He lived at Hartfield House, Headley until his death in Westminster on 2 June 1966.{{cite web |title=WE REMEMBER WILLIAM STEPHEN RICHARD KING-HALL |url=https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/6906065 |website=Imperial War Museum |access-date=8 November 2021}}

Bibliography

=Political and Historical=

A Naval Lieutenant, 1914–1918 as "Etienne"

Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2008; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007, accessed 17 November 2012. [http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whowaswho/U50458 King-Hall]

Diary of a U-Boat-Commander 1918, as "Etienne", 1918 {{Cite web|url=http://www.manybooks.net/titles/anonetext058dubc10.html|title = The Diary of a U-boat Commander by Sir King-Hall Stephen - Free eBook}}
Western Civilisation and the Far East, 1924
Imperial Defence
The China of To-day
The War at Sea, 1914–1918
Submarines in the Future of Naval Warfare, 1920. Thesis.
Our Own Times, 2 vols, 1935
A North Sea Diary : 1914-18, Newnes, London, 1936.

{{Cite web|url=https://opac.navalmarinearchive.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=39906|title = A North Sea Diary : 1914-18 | author = King-Hall, Stephen }} A "new edition" (minor edits and postscripts) of his earlier A Naval Lieutenant under pseudonym "Etienne".

London Newsletter (a.k.a. K-H Weekly News Letter Service, National News Letter), 1936.
Total Victory, 1941
Britain's Third Chance, 1943
My Naval Life, Faber and Faber, London, 1952,

{{Cite web|url=https://opac.navalmarinearchive.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=49312|title = My Naval Life | author = King-Hall, Stephen }}

History in Hansard (with Ann Dewar), 1952
The Communist Conspiracy, 1953
Defence in the Nuclear Age. Gollancz, London, 1958; Nyack, N.Y.: Fellowship, 1959.
Common Sense in Defence, 1960
Men of Destiny, 1960
Our Times, 1900–1960, 1961
Power Politics in the Nuclear age. Gollancz, London, 1962.

In Defence in the Nuclear Age he advocated a British policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament and national defence involving some reliance on conventional military force. This was to be supplemented by "a defence system of non-violence against violence" - what is often called "defence by civil resistance" or "social defence".

Stephen King-Hall, Defence in the Nuclear Age, Gollancz, London, 1958; Nyack, N.Y.: Fellowship, 1959.

In Men of Destiny he criticised all sides for the creation of the Cold War and further promoted his aim of nuclear disarmament.

There have been several accounts and appraisals of his work advocating unilateral nuclear disarmament and defence by civil resistance.[http://www.genekeyes.com/SNVDCO.html Gene Keyes, "Strategic Nonviolent Defense: The Construct of an Option" (1981)]

[http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/05pc.html Brian Martin, "Researching nonviolent action: past themes and future possibilities" (2005)]

=Children=

Letters to Hilary, 1928
Hilary Growing Up, 1929, E. Benn, London.
The crowning of the King and Queen, 1937 {{Cite book| publisher = Evans Brothers Ltd| last = King-Hall| first = Sir Stephen| title = The crowning of the King and Queen| location = London| date = 1937}}

"Hilary Growing Up" was described by the author as building "upon the foundations laid down in its predecessor Letters to Hilary. This book is for children from twelve to ninety... a series of essays, or talks... on sociology."WorldCat - [https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/002133850 Hilary Growing Up]

=Novels=

Moment of No Return, Ballantine Books (No. F543), New York, 1961. A Cold - War novel about tensions between the Soviet Bloc and the West.

=Plays=

Posterity, 1927
The Middle Watch, 1929
The Midshipmaid, 1931
Admirals All, 1934
Tropical Trouble, 1936
The Middle Watch, 1940
Off the Record, 1947
Girls at Sea, 1958

=Radio=

BBC Children's Hour

References

{{IMDb name|0455398}}
{{cite web

| title = Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives

| publisher = University of London - King's College

| url = http://www.kcl.ac.uk/lhcma/summary/ki30-001.shtml

}}

{{cite web

| title = William Stephen Richard King-Hall, Baron King-Hall (1893-1966), Sailor, writer and commentator

| publisher = National Portrait Gallery (London)

| url = http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp02549

}}

{{cite web

| title = Britain and the Future

| publisher = The Empire Club of Canada

| url = http://www.empireclubfoundation.com/details.asp?SpeechID=372&FT=yes

}}

External links

{{Hansard-contribs | commander-william-king-hall | Stephen King-Hall }}
{{Gutenberg author | id=33135}}
{{FadedPage|id=King-Hall, Stephen|name=Stephen King-Hall|author=yes}}
{{Internet Archive author |sname=Stephen King-Hall}}
{{Librivox author |id=4615}}
[https://archive.org/details/northseadiary00kingiala A North Sea Diary 1914-1918] Account of his experience on board the Southampton
{{PM20|FID=pe/009598}}
[https://archivesearch.lib.cam.ac.uk/repositories/9/resources/1853 The papers of Baron King-Hall of Headley] at Churchill Archives Centre