Henry Slesser

Sir Henry Herman Slesser (12 July 1883 – 3 December 1979) was a barrister and British Labour Party politician who served as Solicitor-General and Lord Justice of Appeal.

He was born in London, England as Henry Herman Schloesser, being the son of a leather merchant and a concert pianist. He changed his name in 1914, preferring the Anglicised form when Britain went to war with Germany.

In terms of his socio-economic and political viewpoints, Slesser gained notoriety for being one of the biggest advocates of distributist thought in government, opposing both unregulated capitalism and traditional socialism while arguing on behalf of a more mixed economy with capital spread more among ordinary men. His role helped push the Distributist League's interests until he left the House of Commons.

Born in London, England with the last name Schloesser, he was the second son of Edward Theodore Schloesser (Slesser) ( 1835 Frankfurt -1929 Wycombe) a leather merchant and Anna Gella Seligmann, a concert pianist . After an apprenticeship in railway engineering, his health collapsed, and when he recovered he trained as a barrister. He also joined the Fabian Society, and his legal and political careers became entwined; much of his casework involved defending workers, and in 1912 he was appointed standing counsel to the Labour Party.

He was adopted by the York Labour Representation Committee to run as their candidate at the General Election expected to occur in either 1914 or 1915. The Fabian Society had agreed to finance his campaign. York was a two-member seat which had returned one Conservative and one Liberal MP in 1910. The Liberal and Labour parties had agreed to only put forward one candidate each, against two Conservatives, which would have given Schloesser a good chance of victory. However, due to the outbreak of war in Europe, the election did not take place.

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