OBITUARY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 112, 5 February 1935, Page 9

OBITUARY

The Rt. Hon. J. H. Whitley London,- February 3.

The death is announced of the Rt. Hon. John Henry Whitley, former Speaker of the House of Commons, at the age of 69.

The Rt. Hon. J. 11. Whitley was chairman of the British Broadcasting Corporation at the time of his death. Born at. Halifax in 1566, he was educated at Clifton College and London University. He joined the family firm of cotton spinners, but was always more drawn to the study of politics and social economics. In March, 1900, he was elected Liberal M.B. for Halifax, and that great constituency remained faithful to him till his retirement. In the House of Commons Mr. Whitley set himself to study the rules of Parliamentary procedure. He was a pertinacious critic of the Estimates, and within seven years of his entrance into Parliament he was given office as a Junior Lord of the Treasury under the late Sir Henry Camp-bell-Bannerman and the late Earl of Oxford and Asquith, remaining in office from 1907 to 1910. The following year he was appointed Deputy Speaker and became a Privy Councillor. His greatest work was done in 1917, when, as Chairman of the Committee of Industrial Problems, be presented his report advocating what have since become known as “Whitley Councils” as between employer and employed. He was elected Speaker in 1921, after having been Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means, and then Chairman from 1911 to 192>1. His calm judgment and complete mastgry of Parliamentary complexities enabled him to uphold the fine traditions of the Speakership. He retained his social work among the young men of Halifax, his vein of dry humour making him very popular in his constituency. After leaving the Speaker’s chair in 1928 he refused a peerage. Dr. Hugo Junkers Munich, February 3. The death lias occurred of Professor Hugo Junkers, the aeroplane-engine inventor and constructor. Dr. Junkers was the inventor of the double-opposed piston two-stroke Diesel engine to be found on many ships' built by Doxford’s, of England, and since adapted to aeroplanes. He also pioneered the low-wing mctnl-built monoplane.