Background
He was the eldest son of Sir Alfred Waldron Smithers, who had been Conservative Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Chislehurst until 1922.
Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom
He was the eldest son of Sir Alfred Waldron Smithers, who had been Conservative Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Chislehurst until 1922.
Smithers was educated at Charterhouse and in France and became a member of the London Stock Exchange.
In his 30 years in the House of Commons he was always a backbencher, described by The Times as a "diehard Tory" although well-liked on both sides of the house. In his memoirs, Way of Life, his fellow Conservative John Boyd-Carpenter described Smithers as "an extreme Tory out of a vanished age" and both deeply religious and "not insensitive to the consoling effect of alcohol". Harold Macmillan said he "fondly believed himself to be a good Tory".
He was knighted in 1934.
Smithers remained as member for Chislehurst until the 1945 general election, when he switched to the newly created Orpington constituency. Chislehurst fell to the Labour Party, but Smithers was comfortably elected in Orpington, and held the seat until he died.
During the Cold War, while Member of Parliament for Orpington, Smithers in 1947 pressed for a House of Commons Select Committee on un-British Activities to be created to conduct anti-communist investigations, to mirror the United States. House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1952, fearing possible sabotage, he wrote to Winston Churchill asking for an enquiry into communist influence at the British Broadcasting Corporation. "We have traitors in our midst", he wrote, "and although I should deplore suppression of free speech they should be treated as traitors".
The letter was not released until January 2016.
In the 2008 television drama The Long Walk to Finchley, about the early career of Margaret Thatcher, Smithers was played by Michael Cochrane. Smithers died on 9 December 1954.
34th United Kingdom Parliament. 35th United Kingdom Parliament. 36th United Kingdom Parliament.
37th United Kingdom Parliament.
38th United Kingdom Parliament. 39th United Kingdom Parliament.
40th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was a member of Parliament for more than 30 years and an active anti-communist.