Reginald Dorman-Smith - Definition and Overview

Sir Reginald Hugh Dorman-Smith (1899-1977) was a British farmer who became President of the National Farmers Union and then later Minister of Agriculture. He was first elected as a Member of Parliament in the 1935 general election as one of a handful of MPs sponsored by the NFU and served as the Union's President in the next few years.

In the late 1930s the government's agricultural policy came in for heavy criticism from the NFU, Parliament and the Press and in January 1939 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain took the bold step of appointing Dorman-Smith as Minister of Agriculture. However when Chamberlain fell, Dorman-Smith was not included in the government of his successor, Winston Churchill.