of State for the Colonies, a post which he held until the end of the war. Last years After the Conservatives' massive defeat in the 1945 general election Stanley was prominent amongst those rebuilding the party and he came to be regarded as one of the most important Conservative MPs. He was a governor of The Peckham Experiment in 1949. He succeeded his father as Chancellor of the University of Liverpool. By this time, however, his health was in decline; and he died on 10 December 1950 at his home in Sulhamstead. Had Stanley lived longer, he might well have been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer when the Conservatives formed a government the following year. Historian Sir Charles Petrie went further, and insisted in his 1972 memoirs (A Historian Looks At His World) that "the greatest blow the Conservative Party has sustained since the late war was the premature death of Oliver Stanley. He was one of the most gifted men of the century, and would have made a very great Prime Minister. ... He was as brilliant a conversationalist as a public speaker." Family Stanley married Lady Maureen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, daughter of Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 7th Marquess of Londonderry, and the Hon. Edith Chaplin, in 1920. They had one son and one daughter: Michael Charles Stanley (1921–1990), who married (Aileen) Fortune Constance Hugh Smith and had two sons; and Kathryn Edith Helen Stanley DCVO (1923–2004), Lady-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth II from 1955 to 2002 and who married Sir John Dugdale KCVO (1923–1994) and had two daughters and two sons. Lady Maureen died in June 1942, aged 41. Stanley survived her by eight years and died in December 1950, aged 54. References Books cited Howard, Anthony RAB: The Life of R. A. Butler, Jonathan Cape 1987 External links 1896 births 1950 deaths 20th-century British politicians British Army personnel of World War I British Secretaries of State for Education Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Foreign Office personnel of World War II Lancashire Hussars officers Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ministers in the Churchill caretaker government, 1945 Ministers in the Churchill wartime government, 1940–1945 People educated at Eton College Presidents of the Board of Trade Recipients of the Military Cross Royal Artillery officers Royal Field Artillery officers Secretaries of State for Transport (UK) Secretaries of State for War (UK) Secretaries of State for the Colonies Oliver UK MPs