Henry Paul Guinness Channon, Baron Kelvedon, (9 October 1935 – 27 January 2007) was Conservative MP for Southend West for 38 years, from 1959 until 1997. He served in various ministerial offices, and was a Cabinet minister for 3½ years, as President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from January 1986 to June 1987, and then as Secretary of State for Transport to July 1989. Early life Channon was the only child of Sir Henry "Chips" Channon, the politician and diarist, and Lady Honor Channon, eldest daughter of Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh. His family were well connected: his father's dearest friend was Prince Paul of Yugoslavia; he received a toy panda from King Edward VIII in the run up to the abdication; and he was friends with the Duke of Kent, who was born on the same day, from childhood. He was evacuated to live with the Astor family during the Second World War. Education Channon was educated at two private schools: at Lockers Park School in Hemel Hempstead in Hertfordshire and Eton College in Eton, Berkshire. Playwright Terence Rattigan, an intimate companion of his father, dedicated his play The Winslow Boy (1946) to him. Channon completed his national service in the Royal Horse Guards (the Blues) from 1955 to 1956, serving in Cyprus during the 1956 Cyprus emergency. In London, he was a member of the set around Princess Margaret, and then attended Christ Church, Oxford, from 1956. He was president of the Oxford University Conservative Association. Early parliamentary career While still a second-year undergraduate at Oxford, Channon was elected at the by-election for Southend West in January 1959 at the age of 23. The seat had connections with his family since 1912, when his grandfather, Rupert Guinness, became MP for South East Essex. Guinness became MP for the new seat of Southend in 1918. When Guinness succeeded his father as 2nd Earl of Iveagh in 1927, the seat was won by his wife, Gwendolen Guinness, Countess of Iveagh, who remained MP for Southend until she retired in 1935. She, in turn, was replaced by her son-in-law, Henry "Chips" Channon, who kept the seat until it was divided in 1950, and who then represented one of the seats that replaced it, Southend West, until his death in October 1958. Channon won the nomination to his father's seat ahead of 129