Edward du Cann: Taunton’s Tory grandee

Sir Edward du Cann was a highly influential and controversial Tory MP in the second half of last century, as MP for Taunton for over three decades who held a range of party, parliamentary and government posts. He died on 31August 2017. He is perhaps best remembered for his colourful and often disastrous business career, frequently intertwined with his political life, earning him the satirical nickname of ‘du Cann of Worms’. However, this piece will focus of some of his more Somerset-centred political episodes.

Though born in Beckenham in 1924, du Cann has claimed earlier family political connections to the West Country, with a distant relative twice sitting for constituencies here, including succeeding the famed Admiral Cochrane.

After trying unsuccessfully for two safe Labour seats – Walthamstow West in 1951 (losing to Clement Attlee) and Barrow in Furness in 1955 – he stood for the normally safe Tory seat of Taunton in a 1956 by-election, caused by the former Tory MP, Henry Hopkinson, being ‘kicked upstairs’ to the Lords, largely because of a gaffe in a 1954 Commons debate when, as a minister, he was thought to have controversially asserted that Cyprus would never gain independence. His career was ruined, and he was known thereafter as ‘Never Hopkinson’. Du Cann worried that this would help to put the seat ‘in play’.

In a 2013 interview, he described how nervous he was in a nearby hotel during the count. He had arranged a secret code with his election agent, based on a pair of sentences which would indicate whether the count was going well or badly. However, when the agent eventually phoned him, he mentioned neither of the sentences, so du Cann feared the worst. In fact, he had won, though the majority had fallen from over 5,500 at the 1955 general election to under 660, and he held the seat, usually with comfortable majorities, until he retired in 1987.

In his maiden speech in April 1956, during the Budget debate, he made the usual complimentary remarks about his new constituency: “I have the honour to represent the ancient and historic constituency of Taunton … which includes some of the most beautiful countryside in Somerset, if not in the whole country”. He lived in the constituency, and was proud that he was well-known and trusted by the local population, and that he had worked hard on their behalf. In the same 2013 interview, he gave the example of fighting at Westminster in the early 1960s for flood relief schemes. He was granted the freedom of Taunton in 1977.

Du Cann thrust Taunton into the national headlines in June 1975, just two days before the EEC referendum. Fairly Eurosceptic, he had been silent through most of the referendum campaign, but he made a major speech in his Taunton constituency on 3 June, maximising its impact by pre-releasing it to the press. In it, he claimed that the Tory Party were just as divided on the issue as Labour, and it was only the party’s instinctive loyalty to its past and present leaders that prevented that split from becoming more public. He warned ominously: “Were this not so, I have no doubt that at least as many Conservative Party members would be publicly seen to be against our remaining members of the EEC as are in favour. Perhaps there might even be a majority for withdrawal. For membership of the EEC is bound to offend against much of our history and the consequent attitude of the Conservative Party… There is always a higher loyalty than party loyalty – loyalty to one’s country and to what one honestly believes to be her best interests.”

Coming from the chair of the influential backbench 1922 Committee, this bombshell energised Tory anti-Marketeers, and enraged the pro-EEC leadership, with calls for him to be ousted as Chair in the annual election (that didn’t happen, and he was re-elected unopposed that November). It effectively hijacked a pro-EEC call at a planned press conference that day by the new Tory Leader, Margaret Thatcher, where she tried to downplay its impact. It was later suggested by academics that his stance had taken off about 1-2% from the eventual pro-EEC vote in Somerset.

He bought Cothay Manor near Wellington in 1972 for £100,000, an investment that was to cause him financial difficulties over succeeding years, including court action for repossession for mortgage arrears in 1986. It was sold in 1993 when he was declared bankrupt. However the Wellington connection encouraged an interest in the Duke of Wellington, and he was said to hold one of the largest private collections of cartoons and caricatures of the Iron Duke, writing about them in his later years.