Person

Winster, Reginald Thomas Herbert Fletcher, Baron, 1885-1961

1885-1961

Reginald Thomas Herbert Fletcher, 1st Baron Winster, was born on March 27, 1885, in London, England.

He was a Royal Navy officer and politician. He chose the navy as a career and entered the training ship Britannia in 1899. He served in the First World War in destroyers, the channel patrol, the light cruiser force, and the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. He was promoted lieutenant-commander in 1922 and retired from the navy in 1924. Fletcher was elected as Liberal Member of Parliament for Basingstoke in 1923 but lost the seat in 1924. He joined the Labour Party in 1929 and, in 1935, he was elected as Labour MP for Nuneaton. In 1942, he was raised to the peerage as Baron Winster of Witherslack and became a member of the House of Lords. He was made a Privy Counsellor in 1945. From 1945 to 1946, he served as Minister of Civil Aviation in the government of Clement Attlee. In 1946, he was appointed Governor of Cyprus, a position he held until 1949. In 1949, he was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

In 1909, he married Elspeth Lomax (1878–1961). He died on June 7, 1961, in Uckfield, Sussex, England.