Hugh Lea

Hugh Cecil Lea (27 May 1869 – 29 January 1926) was a British Liberal Party politician and newspaper proprietor.

He was a son of Carl Adolph Lea, a London coal merchant registered as owning a Merchant navy ship, the spritsail-rigged "Alacer", in 1875,[1] his business failing the same year,[2] and Elizabeth Maria (c. 1842-1931), daughter of Thomas Matthews.

Standing for parliament for the first time, he gained the seat from the Conservative at the 1906 General Election.

[6] He was a Member of London County Council, representing St Pancras East for the Liberal Party backed Progressives from 1910 to 1913.

Lea enlisted in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in 1887; he "excelled in his exams, progressing through his education certificates" and was appointed a staff clerk in the Army Pay Department, paying £18 as a lance corporal for his own discharge.