1952 exchanged his post at the Ministry of Health for the sinecure post of Lord Privy Seal, while he remained as Commons Leader. He continued in these two positions until December 1955, the last year under the premiership of Sir Anthony Eden. In the 1955 New Year Honours he was made a Companion of Honour. He retired from the House of Commons in 1956 and was raised to the peerage as the Viscount Crookshank, of Gainsborough in the County of Lincoln, in January of that year. He had been offered a peerage in February 1940 but declined, having considered it at the time an insult because his First World War wounds had left him incapable of fathering any heir to a title. Papers released by The National Archives, London, November 2007, show that Crookshank, with Harold Macmillan, led a faction within the third Churchill ministry who opposed what they perceived to be an attempt to bounce the Cabinet into a premature decision to authorise a British thermonuclear bomb programme in July 1954. Personal life Lord Crookshank was a Scottish Rite Freemason and Grand Master of Lincolnshire. Incapable as result of his First World War wounds of fathering children, Crookshank was a lifelong bachelor. He was also (not publicly) known as a homosexual and caused a near scandal when a male lover of his was adopted as Conservative Party candidate for the Grimsby constituency in 1958 but later withdrawn. His home from 1937 was at 51 Pont Street, Kensington, London, where in 1947 he hosted a meeting of like-minded backbench MPs who unsuccessfully demanded Churchill's removal as Leader of the Conservative Party. He died of cancer at Chelsea, London, in October 1961, aged 68. The viscountcy died with him. Having been since 1960 High Steward of the City of Westminster, his funeral service took place at Westminster Abbey, followed by burial at Lincoln Cathedral. His sister, Helen Elizabeth Comfort Crookshank (1895–1948), lies next to him. References Books cited (a joint biography of Harold Macmillan, Lord Salisbury, Oliver Lyttelton and Crookshank) External links 1893 births 1961 deaths British Army personnel of World War I Castrated people Crookshank, Harry British Freemasons Grenadier Guards officers Leaders of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom Lords Privy Seal Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ministers in the Chamberlain peacetime government, 1937–1939 Ministers