Thomas Fenby

Fenby was born in Bridlington in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the son of a master of a local blacksmith's forge.

Fenby apparently gained a reputation at Westminster for being unconventional and independent minded and was a good platform speaker.

[7] Inevitably, Fenby was caught up in the turmoil within the Liberal Party arising from the rivalries of David Lloyd George and H H Asquith.

Fenby was a founder member of this Radical Group which in 1927 became the Liberal Council, a formal organisation within the party, opposed to the social policies being developed under the leadership of Lloyd George.

Fenby's distrust of Lloyd George lasted at least until 1926 when he was one of ten Liberal MPs who voted against his continuing leadership of the Parliamentary party.

In April 1926 he was a signatory to a letter to the Manchester Guardian, along with Bertrand Russell, H N Brailsford and Violet Bonham Carter – amongst others – urging support for a bill not to withhold birth control information given to married women.