Robert Bower

Commander Robert Tatton Bower (9 June 1894 – 5 July 1975) was a Royal Navy officer and a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom. Early life Bower was the only son- with two sisters- of Major Sir Robert Lister Bower, KBE, CMG, of The West House, Thirsk, Yorkshire, Chief Constable of the North Riding of Yorkshire, late of the 60th Rifles, and sometime of the 7th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and Annette Norah, daughter of Henry Haswell Head, MD, of Thornhill, Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland. The Bower family were minor landed gentry, of Welham Hall, Malton, North Yorkshire. Political career At the 1931 general election he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Cleveland. He was re-elected in 1935, and held the seat until his defeat at the 1945 general election by the Labour Party candidate George Willey. On 4 April 1938, Bower was involved in a House of Commons incident when he interrupted Jewish Labour MP Emanuel Shinwell, telling him to "go back to Poland". Shinwell walked across the floor of the House and struck Bower in the face, before turning to the Speaker, apologising and walking out of the chamber to calls from MPs of "Get out! Get Out!". Bower, who on being struck had merely "folded his arms and stared" Shinwell down, also then apologised to the Speaker. No disciplinary action was taken against either MP.