Mabane was elected
Member of Parliament (MP) for
Huddersfield in
1931 and lost his seat in
1945. Mabane's exact party label was confused for much of his time in the Commons. His local Liberal association was affiliated to the official
Liberals until 1939, but Mabane was frequently listed as being a
National Liberal, which he repeatedly sought to deny, despite supporting the
National Government when the official Liberals had ceased to. He lost his seat to Labour in
1945, when he was opposed by an official Liberal candidate,
Roy Harrod. The standard authoritative work by
F. W. S. Craig indicates he was a National Liberal throughout his tenure, as does the contemporary
Times Guide to the House of Commons. The town remained an area of strength for liberals and at the
1950 general election, the Liberal
Donald Wade won
Huddersfield West in a straight fight against Labour. He entered the government as
Assistant Postmaster-General under
Neville Chamberlain in September 1939, an office he only held until October, when he was made
Minister for Home Security. When
Winston Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as prime minister in May 1940, Mabane was appointed
Parliamentary Secretary to the Home Department, a post he held jointly with
Ellen Wilkinson from October of that year. He later served under Churchill as
Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food from 1942 to 1945 and as
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs between May and July 1945. He was sworn of the
Privy Council in the
1944 New Year Honours and a Knight Commander of the
Order of the British Empire (KBE) in 1954. In 1962 he was raised to the peerage as
Baron Mabane, of
Rye in the
County of Sussex. He was tenant of
Lamb House, the National Trust property in
Rye, East Sussex. Apart from his political career he was also chairman (1960–1963) and president (1964–1966) of the
British Travel Association. He was a director of
The Rank Organisation from 1963 to 1966. ==Personal life==