Thomas Arthur Ponsonby, 3rd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede (23 October 1930 – 13 June 1990) was a British hereditary peer and Labour Party politician.
He was the eldest son of Matthew Henry Herbert Ponsonby, 2nd Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, and his wife Hon. Elizabeth Mary Bigham, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Mersey. He was educated at Bryanston School and Hertford College, Oxford.
He served in London local government for 20 years, firstly as a council member of the Metropolitan Borough of Kensington from 1956 to 1965 and then as an Alderman of the newly created Kensington and Chelsea London Borough Council from 1964 to 1974. He was also an Alderman of the Greater London Council from 1970 to 1977 and served as the Chairman of the Council from 1976 to 1977.
Ponsonby succeeded to the peerage on the death of his father in 1976 and made his maiden speech in the House of Lords on the subject of local government devolution. [1] He was elected as Labour Chief Whip in the House of Lords in 1982, defeating Lord Strabolgi. He served as Opposition Chief Whip until his death in 1990.
Ponsonby was an active member of the Fabian Society, serving as its general secretary from 1964 to 1976, and was a Governor of the London School of Economics from 1970 to 1990. [2]
He had married twice:
He was succeeded by his son, Frederick Ponsonby, 4th Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede. [3]
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Earl of Bessborough is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1739 for Brabazon Ponsonby, 2nd Viscount Duncannon, who had previously represented Newtownards and County Kildare in the Irish House of Commons. In 1749, he was given the additional title of Baron Ponsonby of Sysonby, in the County of Leicester, in the Peerage of Great Britain, which entitled him to a seat in the British House of Lords. The titles Viscount Duncannon, of the fort of Duncannon in the County of Wexford, and Baron Bessborough, of Bessborough, Piltown, in the County of Kilkenny, had been created in the Peerage of Ireland in 1723 and 1721 respectively for Lord Bessborough's father William Ponsonby, who had earlier represented County Kilkenny in the Irish House of Commons.
Baron de Mauley, of Canford in the County of Dorset, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 10 July 1838 for the Whig politician the Hon. William Ponsonby, who had earlier represented Poole, Knaresborough and Dorset in the House of Commons. He was the third son of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, an Anglo-Irish peer, and the husband of Lady Barbara Ashley-Cooper, one of the co-heirs to the ancient barony by writ of Mauley, which superseded the feudal barony the caput of which was at Mulgrave Castle, Yorkshire, which barony by writ had become extinct in 1415. His son, later the second Baron, sat as Member of Parliament for Poole and Dungarvon.
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Baron Ponsonby of Shulbrede, of Shulbrede in the County of Sussex, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1930 for the politician Arthur Ponsonby. Ponsonby was the third son of General Sir Henry Ponsonby and the great-grandson of Frederick Ponsonby, 3rd Earl of Bessborough. Frederick Ponsonby, 1st Baron Sysonby, was his elder brother. The first Baron's grandson, the third Baron, was also a Labour politician and notably served as Opposition Chief Whip in the House of Lords in the 1980s. As of 2017 the title is held by the latter's only son, the fourth Baron, who succeeded in 1990. He sat on the Labour benches in the House of Lords prior to the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, when he lost his seat. However, in 2000 he was given a life peerage as Baron Ponsonby of Roehampton, of Shulbrede in the County of West Sussex, and was able to retake his seat in the House of Lords.
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