Richard Stokes

Major Sir Richard Rapier Stokes MC and bar (27 January 1897–3 August 1957) was a British Labour politician who served briefly as Lord Privy Seal in 1951.

Stokes was educated at Downside School, the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served in the Royal Artillery during World War I, winning the Military Cross and bar and the Croix de Guerre. He became chairman and managing director of the engineering firm Ransomes & Rapier Ltd. He was chairman and supporter of the School of Economic Science.

Stokes won the Ipswich seat in a 1938 by-election, which he kept in the 1945, 1950, 1951 and 1955 elections. He was known for his independence in parliament, including, with Bishop George Bell and fellow Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Alfred Salter, opposing area strategic bombing during World War II. Stokes was also a prominent critic of the inadequacy of Allied tank design. Prior to the war, he co-wrote a paper (with Andrew MacLaren and George Lansbury) analysing the economic forces menacing peace in Europe. After the RAF's bombing of Dresden on the night of 13 February and the early hours of 14 February, his questions in the House about the act, were in part responsible for the reappraisal of the Government's bombing policy in the last month of the war in Europe. He raised other issue after the war relating to Yalta and the forced repatriation of Yugoslavs, and the treatment of Dr George Chatterton-Hill in Germany.

He was appointed Lord Privy Seal and the new position of Minister of Materials in April 1951, succeeding Ernest Bevin but served only a few months before Labour lost the 1951 general election. He aimed to show that the proposed armaments programme could be carried out, contrary to Bevin and Harold Wilson (who had resigned over this and other issues)

Stokes died at home in London of a heart attack according to his death notice, although he had been in a road accident on 23 July when his car overturned during a thunderstorm on the flooded London road at Stanway near Colchester.

His uncle Sir Wilfred Stokes invented the Stokes Mortar in World War I.