Bernard Richard Braine, Baron Braine of Wheatley, PC (24 June 1914 – 5 January 2000)[2] was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 42 years, from 1950 to 1992, representing constituencies in Essex.
During his long parliamentary career, Braine served as a junior Minister variously for Pensions, Commonwealth Relations and Health.[1]
He was chairman of the National Council on Alcoholism, and author of the report Alcohol and Work (1977), widely known as the Braine Report.[5] He was a member of the Parliamentary Groups on Human Rights and against abortion. For many years he served as an unofficial ambassador of HM's government to the Polish Government-in-Exile in London. He was knighted in the 1972 New Year Honours, and appointed as a Privy Counsellor in 1985.
Braine championed many causes involving oppressed people. Among them was the Campaign for the Defence of the Unjustly Prosecuted, of which he was President and later Chairman during 1980–1987.[6] In this capacity and in collaboration with the exiled journalist Josef Josten, he campaigned vigorously for the release from prison of the dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, who later became President of the Czech Republic. He was decorated by Havel at a ceremony in Prague Castle on 28 October 1995.
Later life
Braine stepped down from Parliament at the 1992 general election, and on 10 August that year he was made a life peer as Baron Braine of Wheatley, of Rayleigh in the County of Essex.[7] He died in January 2000 at the age of 85.
Arms
Coat of arms of Bernard Braine
Crest
Rising from a circlet of four chained portcullises Or alternating with pairs of tailor's scissors an arm embowed in armour holding a sword the blade proper hilt quillons and pommel Or striking an arc of fetters also Proper.
Escutcheon
Or a raven sable on a chief Azure between two wheatsheaves a spur Gold.
Supporters
On either side a fawn Proper that to the dexter gorged with a collar Argent fimbriated Gules and charged on each shoulder with an ostrich plume Proper spined Or (one manifest) that to the sinister gorged with a like collar Argent fimbriated Or and similarly charged with like ostrich plumes.
