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John Thomson Stonehouse (28 July 192514 April 1988) was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician, businessman and minister who was a member of the Cabinet under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974. It is alleged that Stonehouse had been an agent for StB.
Stonehouse was educated at Taunton's School (now Richard Taunton Sixth Form College), Southampton, and served as a Royal Air Force pilot from 1944 until 1946. He then attended the London School of Economics (LSE), where he read for a BSc (Econ.) degree. During his time at the LSE, he was chairman of both the chess clubJoan Abse (ed.), My LSE (London: Robson Books, 1977), p. 157. and the Labour society. The political scientist Bernard Crick, who was a contemporary of Stonehouse at university, recalls that his then nickname was 'Lord John', and that "his conversation was openly and restlessly about how best to get a parliamentary seat."
In February 1959, Stonehouse travelled to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland on a fact-finding tour in which he condemned the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Speaking to the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress, he encouraged indigenous Rhodesians to stand up for their rights and said they had the support of the British Labour Party. Stonehouse was promptly deported from Southern Rhodesia and banned from returning a year later. Keesing's Contemporary Archives Volume XII, (April 1959) p. 16774
Stonehouse served as a junior minister of aviation, where he was involved in the British Overseas Airways Corporation's order of Boeing 707 aircraft from the United States, against his own recommendation that they should buy the Super Vickers VC10, a British-made aircraft. This led to accusations by Stonehouse against colleagues about the reasons for the decision. In March 1968, Stonehouse negotiated an agreement providing a framework for the long-term development of technological co-operation between Britain and Czechoslovakia providing for the exchange of specialists and information, facilities for study and research in technology, and such other forms of industrial co-operation which might be agreed. Keesing's Contemporary Archives, Volume 14, (March 1968) p. 22619
Stonehouse's rise continued while in the Colonial Office, and in 1967 he became Minister for Technology under Wilson. He later served as Postmaster General, where his greatest contribution to the postal system was the introduction of first and second-class Postage stamp in 1968, often called the two-tier post, which was met with a full day of debate on the floor of Parliament after a bungled marketing campaign. The debates over Stonehouse's leadership were follwed shortly after by the aboltion of the office of Postmaster General by the Post Office Act 1969. As Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in 1970, Stonehouse oversaw the controversial radio jamming of the offshore radio station Radio North Sea International. When Labour was defeated at the 1970 general election, he was not appointed to the Shadow Cabinet.
When the Wednesbury constituency was abolished in 1974, Stonehouse stood for and was elected to the nearby Walsall North constituency in the February general election. With Labour a minority government, another election was called in September, and Stonehouse was re-elected with an increased majority of nearly 16,000 in the October election, just six weeks before his disappearance. Stonehouse's last Parliamentary contribution before his disappearance was at Prime Minister's Questions on 14 November 1974, a few days before leaving for Miami, Florida.
Using false identities, Stonehouse set about transferring large sums of money between banks as a further means of covering his tracks. Under the name of 'Clive Mildoon', he deposited A$21,500 in cash at the Bank of New Zealand. The teller who handled the money later spotted 'Mildoon' at the Bank of New South Wales. Inquiries led the teller to learn that the money was in the name of 'Joseph Markham', and he informed the local police. Stonehouse visited Copenhagen with Buckley around this time and returned to Australia unaware that he was now under surveillance. The Australian police initially suspected him of being Lord Lucan, who had disappeared a fortnight before Stonehouse, following the murder of his children's nanny. They contacted Scotland Yard, requesting pictures of both Lucan and Stonehouse. On his arrest, the police instructed Stonehouse to pull down his trousers in an attempt to establish whether or not he was Lucan, who had a scar on the inside of his right thigh.
Although unhappy with the situation, the Labour Party did not expel Stonehouse as their parliamentary majority was very narrow. On 4 April 1976 Stonehouse attended a St George's Day festival hosted by the English National Party; he later confirmed he had joined the party, making Labour a minority government.
Stonehouse conducted his own defence on twenty-one charges of fraud, theft, forgery, conspiracy to defraud, causing a false police investigation and wasting police time. His trial lasted 68 days. On 6 August 1976, Stonehouse was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud, and received a criminal bankruptcy order. He agreed to resign as a Privy Counsellor on 17 August 1976, becoming one of only three people to resign from the Privy Council in the 20th century. Stonehouse tendered his resignation via the Chiltern Hundreds route from the House of Commons on 27 August 1976. The subsequent by-election was won by Robin Hodgson, a Conservative. In October 1976, Stonehouse was declared bankrupt.
Stonehouse was imprisoned in HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs. On 30 June 1977, the House of Lords refused his appeal against five of the charges of which he was convicted. While he was in prison, Stonehouse complained that the prison workshop where he worked played a pop music radio station. He made acquaintance with Moors murders Ian Brady, and the pair played chess together until Brady was transferred elsewhere. When his health deteriorated, Stonehouse was moved to HM Prison Blundeston in Suffolk.
Stonehouse wrote three novels and made numerous television and radio appearances during the rest of his life, mostly in connection with discussing his disappearance. In June 1986 he appeared on TVS's Regrets programme and in December that year on the BBC Radio 4 interview programme In The Psychiatrist's Chair with Anthony Clare.
Stonehouse's daughter Julia published an account of her father's life in 2021 entitled John Stonehouse, My Father: The True Story of the Runaway MP; it was released almost simultaneously with a book called Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster, Spy, by criminal defence solicitor Julian Hayes, who is Stonehouse's great-nephew through the author's father, Michael Hayes, who was the MP's nephew and his lawyer. Julia has an eponymous website in which she questions the veracity of other books and broadcasts about her father.
Stonehouse was cremated in Bassett Green, Southampton, on 22 April 1988. Glasgow Herald. 15 April 1988 The former MP Bruce Douglas-Mann paid tribute. In 1989, his fourth novel was published posthumously.
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