Leslie Hore-Belisha
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The Right Honourable The Lord Hore-Belisha PC |
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Leslie Hore-Belisha
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| Secretary of State for War | |
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In office 28 May 1937 – 5 January 1940 |
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| Prime Minister | Neville Chamberlain |
| Preceded by | Duff Cooper |
| Succeeded by | Hon. Oliver Stanley |
| Minister of Transport | |
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In office 29 June 1934 – 28 May 1937 |
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| Prime Minister |
Ramsay Macdonald Stanley Baldwin |
| Preceded by | Hon. Oliver Stanley |
| Succeeded by | Leslie Burgin |
| Financial Secretary to the Treasury | |
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In office 29 September 1932 – 29 June 1934 |
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| Prime Minister | Ramsay Macdonald |
| Preceded by | Walter Elliot |
| Succeeded by | Duff Cooper |
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Member of Parliament for Plymouth Devonport |
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In office 6 December 1923 – 5 July 1945 |
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| Preceded by | Clement Kinloch-Cooke |
| Succeeded by | Michael Foot |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
7 September 1893 Devonport, Plymouth, Devon |
| Died | 16 February 1957 (aged 63) Rheims, France |
| Nationality | British |
| Political party |
Liberal Party Liberal National |
| Spouse(s) | Cynthia Elliot (1916–1991) |
| Alma mater | St John's College, Oxford |
Leslie Hore-Belisha, 1st Baron Hore-Belisha, PC (/ˈhɔər bəˈliːʃə/; 7 September 1893 – 16 February 1957) was a British Liberal, then National Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) and Cabinet Minister. He later joined the Conservative Party. He proved highly successful in modernizing the British road system in 1934 – 37 as Minister of Transport. As Secretary of War, 1937 – 1940, he feuded with the commanding generals and was removed in 1940. Anti-semitism played a role in blocking his appointment as Minister of Information. His biographer compares his strong and weak points:
His name is still widely associated in the UK with the amber "Belisha beacons" which were installed at pedestrian crossings while he was Minister for Transport.
Hore-Belisha was born Isaac Leslie Belisha probably in Devonport, Plymouth; his birth, however, was registered in Hampstead, in the fourth quarter of 1893. He was the only son of the Jewish family of Jacob Isaac Belisha (birth registered in Chorlton 1862 ), manager of an insurance company, and his wife, Elizabeth Miriam Miers (birth registered in St. Pancras in the second quarter of 1867). His father died when he was less than one year old (registered in Fylde, Lancashire, in the second quarter of 1894). In 1912, in Kensington, his widowed mother married Sir Charles F. Adair Hore, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Pensions. Leslie Belisha then adopted the double-barrelled surname. The suggestion that he changed his name from Horeb-Elisha (to appear non-Jewish) seems to be without foundation; the name Belisha is likely to either have originated as D'Elisha or be a variant of the Albanian-language surname .
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