Henry Usborne
British politician (1909-1996)
Henry Charles Usborne (16 January 1909 – 16 March 1996) was a British Labour Party politician and peace activist who defected to the Liberal Party.
Early life and career
Usborne was born in Hisar, Punjab, India, was educated at Bradfield College and read engineering at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Political career
In the 1945 general election, Usborne was elected as the member of parliament (MP) for Acocks Green. The constituency was abolished and in 1950 Usborne was elected in the marginal constituency of Birmingham Yardley. He held the seat until the 1959 general election.
According to his obituary in the Times on 19 March 1996, Usborne resigned from the Labour Party in 1962 and joined the Liberal Party. He urged former colleagues to join Jo Grimond's party as the best hope for defeating the Conservatives. There was a suggestion that Usborne be nominated to stand for the Liberal Party at Cheltenham, but he announced that wild horses would not drag him into another parliamentary contest.
Foundation of Parliamentary Group for World Government
In addition to his work as a constituency MP, he was one of the main drivers in the British world federalist movement. In 1945, ahead of the foundation of the United Nations, Edith Wynner, a friend, activist and secretary to Rosika Schwimmer visited London and worked with Henry for Campaign for World Government.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Henry Usborne” as british politician (1909-1996). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british politician (1909-1996). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16013765. VIAF identifies the subject as 6186159477877527990002. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1909, 1996, 1945 and 1950.
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This entry incorporates text from “Henry Usborne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.