What position did Harry Snell, 1st Baron Snell take from Dec 1923 to May 1929?
Harry Snell , 1st Baron Snell Henry Snell , 1st Baron Snell ( 1 April 1865 – 21 April 1944 ) , was a British socialist politician and campaigner . He served in government under Ramsay MacDonald and Winston Churchill , and as the Labour Partys leader in the House of Lords in the late 1930s . Background . Born in Sutton-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire , the son of agricultural workers , Harry Snell was educated at his local village school before beginning work as a farm hand at the age of eight . He worked full-time from the age of ten and became an indoor servant at the farm aged twelve . Dissatisfied with this work , Snell left and travelled around the county , taking a variety of jobs including work as a groom and ferryman at an inn on the River Trent and as a French polisher in Nottingham . During long periods of unemployment he occupied himself with extensive reading , and was particularly influenced by the writing of Henry George . Inspired by Charles Bradlaugh and the cause of secularism in Nottingham 1881 , he joined the National Secular Society . He rejected the austere and literalist Anglicanism of his up-bringing , but retained some religious faith and decided to join the Unitarian Church , impressed by its scientific approach to Christian doctrine and its progressive and tolerant values . A Unitarian teacher , John Kentish-White , introduced Snell to the works of Lord Byron and Samuel Taylor Coleridge . Through acquaintances made in the Unitarian movement , Snell was able to find a job in London as a clerk at the offices of the Midland Institute for the Blind . Here he continued his self-education at the reference library of University College London , being influenced by the writings of Thomas Paine , William Morris , John Ruskin and John Stuart Mill . Eventually Unitarianism would grow even too strict for him , and he became an agnostic and member of the National Secular Society . After hearing Annie Besant address a meeting of the Secular Society on the subject of socialism , Snell joined the Social Democratic Federation . He worked on John Burns campaign for Parliament in 1885 , and began to address public meetings himself , appearing alongside the likes of Henry Hyndman , Tom Mann , Eleanor Marx and Ben Tillett . He was active in supporting the Bryant and May match factory strike and the London dock strike of 1889 . Member of Parliament . In 1890 , Snell began social work for the Woolwich Charity Organisation Society , and later became secretary to the director of the London School of Economics . He joined the Independent Labour Party and , in 1894 , the Fabian Society , travelling extensively around Britain to lecture on socialist topics with speakers including Ramsay MacDonald and Bruce Glasier . Snell also lectured for the British South Place Ethical Society ( eventually becoming President ) and its American counterpart . Snell stood unsuccessfully in Huddersfield as a candidate for the Labour Party in January and December 1910 and 1918 . He was elected to the London County Council in 1919 , serving until 1925 , and became Member of Parliament for Woolwich East , the seat formerly held by Will Crooks , at the 1922 General Election , being re-elected in 1929 . In late 1929 , Snell was appointed to the Shaw Commission , which had been set up to investigate Arab uprisings in Palestine . When the Commission published its findings in March 1931 , Snell delivered a Minority Report , disagreeing with the Commissions recommendation that Jewish immigration and land purchase be curtailed . Snell also dissented from the Commissions claims that Palestine was overcrowded , agreeing with reports published two years earlier that had found the area to be under-populated and greatly under-cultivated . He described the impact of Jewish immigration as having raised the standard of living for Arab workers , and asserted that the Commission was wrongly and dangerously encouraging the view that immigration was a menace to Arabs and threatened their economic future . Following this , Snell became a strong supporter of Zionism . From 1931 to 1932 , he served as President of the British Ethical Union ( now known as Humanists UK ) , an organisation promoting humanism as a non-religious basis for morality . Snell was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire ( CBE ) in the 1930 Birthday Honours . House of Lords . Snell resigned his seat in the Commons in 1931 , to make way for George Hicks , a leading member of the Trades Union Congress , and was raised to the peerage as Baron Snell , of Plumstead in the County of Kent , on 23 March 1931 . Ramsay MacDonald made him Under-Secretary of State for India and , upon the formation of the National Government a few months later , asked Snell to continue in this role . However , Snell refused , choosing to remain loyal to the Labour Party . In the Lords , he spoke on agricultural issues , with particular concern for rural workers , and on foreign affairs , and was a member of the British Institute of Parliamentary Affairs and the Empire Parliamentary Association . He was also appointed to the British Council , eventually becoming vice-chairman . In 1935 , when Arthur Ponsonby chose to resign with George Lansbury , Snell became Labours leader in the Lords , serving under Clement Attlee . He published an autobiography , Men , Movements and Myself , in 1936 , and was made a Privy Counsellor in 1937 . As leader in the Lords , Snell took a strong line against the growing threat of fascism , and attacked the Governments appeasement of Nazi Germany and its refusal to intervene to help the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War . He also continued to champion Zionism . During a debate in the Lords in 1938 he spoke in support the policy of population transfer of Arabs in Palestine for purposes of developing the land and creating cohesive settlements , pointing out that similar transfers had occurred in Libya and other Arab countries without any protest . Aged seventy-five and with his health failing , he stood down as leader of the Labour peers in 1940 . However , he recovered and was appointed by Winston Churchill as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms ( Deputy Leader of the House of Lords ) a year later ( having been considered as Leader , but passed over in favour of a Conservative ) . He chaired several committees and inquiries during the Second World War , and was awarded the Companion of Honour in 1943 . Whilst still in the role of Deputy Leader , Snell fell ill at the end of March 1944 , and died less than a month later , his peerage becoming extinct at that time .