Henry Willink

Sir Henry Urmston Willink, 1st Baronet MC PC KC (7 March 1894 – 20 July 1973), was a British politician and public servant.

He is best known for his service in the Conservative Party as Minister of Health from 1943-1945 in the wartime Coalition Government of the United Kingdom. He proposed many of the bases of the National Health Service later taken up by the Labour Party, but he was criticised by his successor, Aneurin Bevan, for having made too many concessions to various vested interests.

Willink was born in Liverpool. He was educated as a King's Scholar at Eton College, where he won the Newcastle Scholarship in 1912, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Before he could take his Cambridge degree, he volunteered for service in the Royal Field Artillery during the First World War. When only 22, Willink commanded a battery at the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Willink received the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre. Post-war, he was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1920, was appointed to the rank of King's Counsel in 1935 and became a Bencher in 1942.