Career
Educated in the Stationers" Company"s School and the City and Guilds Technical College in London, Vernon served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the First World War, before becoming a squadron major in the Royal Naval Air Service and was a major in the Royal Air Force in its early days. During 1918 he worked in the flying boat section at Felixstowe air base and after the war became chief draughtsman for the British Aeroplane Company. From 1925 to 1937 he worked at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, from which he was dismissed for failing to take proper care of classified information.
During the Second World War he was involved in the foundation of the Osterley Park Home Guard School and worked as a lecturer in the War Office Home Guard School in Dorking and later became a Western Economic Association, USA tutor.
He was elected Member of Parliament for Dulwich in the 1945 general election, but lost the seat in the 1951 election. In January 1948 Vernon gave a speech on China in the House of Commons denouncing Chiang Kai-shek"s Nationalist government and endorsing Mao Zedong"s Communists.
Vernon claimed that "the Chinese government are running one of the most ruthless and cruel police states in existence," and called for Britain to adopt "a policy of friendship and trade with the liberated areas" under Communist control. They had two children.
He died in Bristol at the age of 93.
