their Leader, Sir Herbert Samuel, lose his seat. In 1935, the new Liberal Leader Sir Archie Sinclair appointed Sir Percy Liberal Chief Whip in succession to Walter Rea, who had also lost his seat at the recent general election. Wartime Government In 1940, when Liberal Leader Sir Archie Sinclair took up a cabinet position in the Churchill Coalition Government he appointed Harris as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Parliamentary Party in addition to being Chief Whip. The deputy position had been vacant since Sinclair had become leader in 1935. At the same time Harris was appointed a Privy Counsellor. On his shoulders fell much of the responsibility of leading the party in the Commons and in organising the party in the country. The Liberal Party was invigorated by the recruitment to its ranks of Sir William Beveridge, author of the Beveridge Report and optimistically met the electorate at the 1945 general election. However, the election was a disappointment for the party and particularly for Harris who lost his seat in the Labour Party tide. Latter years In 1946 Harris published his autobiography, Forty Years In and Out of Parliament. After the loss of his parliamentary seat, he remained politically active and won his old London County Council seat back from the Labour Party in 1946. Harris played a key role in the formation of Liberal International in 1947 and was President of the British Council of LI. He was re-elected in the 1949 London County Council Elections, but found himself to be the only Liberal on the Council and briefly holding the balance of power between Labour and Conservative. In 1950, Harris sought a similar return to parliament for the new merged seat of Bethnal Green, but in a bad year for the Liberals, finished a distant second. Harris died in Kensington aged 76 in 1952. His monument in the churchyard of St Nicholas Church, Chiswick is Grade II* listed. The relief carving by Edward Bainbridge Copnall depicts the resurrection of the dead. It was carved in the late 1920s and acquired by Harris for display in his garden at Morton House, Chiswick Mall. Electoral record References Bibliography Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Obituary, Jewish Chronicle, 4 July 1952 External links Parliamentary Archives, The Papers of Sir Percy Harris 1876 births 1952 deaths People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Baronets in the Baronetage of the United