Turnour was first elected for
Horsham in
a by-election in 1904 at the age of just 21, the youngest
Member of Parliament (MP) in the Commons, and remained an MP for the next 47 years. In 1907 he succeeded his father, becoming 6th Earl Winterton. This was an
Irish peerage and did not disqualify him from remaining a member of the House of Commons. Sitting as a
Conservative, Winterton slowly rose through the ranks, later achieving ministerial office as
Under-Secretary of State for India in 1922, a post he held until 1924. In 1924 he was sworn of the
Privy Council and once again served as Under-Secretary of State for India from 1924 to 1929. Winterton did not hold office in the National Governments headed by firstly
Ramsay MacDonald and then
Stanley Baldwin. However, when
Neville Chamberlain became
Prime Minister in May 1937, Winterton was appointed
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In March 1938 he was promoted to the Cabinet and given the job of speaking in the House of Commons on behalf of the
Secretary of State for Air Viscount Swinton, a member of the
House of Lords. In this role he proved a noted failure, especially in a heated debate in May 1938 which led to Chamberlain concluding that the Secretary of State for Air must be an MP. In July 1938 he led the British delegation to the
Evian Conference at which the problem of the Jewish refugees was debated. Thereafter, Winterton was increasingly sidelined. The following year he was dropped from the Cabinet and served in the marginal post of
Paymaster General before leaving the government altogether. Winterton remained a Member of Parliament until 1951, by which time he was the MP with the longest continuous service. In 1952 he was created
Baron Turnour, of
Shillinglee in the County of Sussex, in the
Peerage of the United Kingdom, which gave him a seat in the House of Lords. The Patent creating this peerage is currently in the possession of
Mark Lindley-Highfield of Ballumbie Castle. ==Business career==