Death of Green peer

Apr 11 2008 by Neil Atkinson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

LORD Beaumont of Whitley, the Green Party’s only Parliamentary representative, has died aged 79, the party said yesterday.

Lord Beaumont was the great-grandson of Henry Beaumont, who created Beaumont Park in Huddersfield.

The peer, who died in hospital in London, was to have been a guest of honour at a function in the park later this month.

A clergyman, he joined the House of Lords in 1967 as a Liberal and became the party’s chairman and president before defecting to the Greens in 1999.

Principal Green Party speakers Caroline Lucas Euro-MP and Derek Wall paid tribute to Lord Beaumont, saying he would be enormously missed.

They added: “He was a pioneering spirit in green politics, and a passionate defender of human rights and civil liberties.”