Herbert, A(lan) P(atrick) (1890–1971)

English politician and writer. He was an Independent member of Parliament for Oxford University 1935–50, author of several novels, including The Water Gipsies (1930), and a contributor to the humorous magazine Punch.

Herbert was born in London and education at Oxford. He became a barrister in 1918, but never practised. His first novel, The Secret Battle (1919), dealing with an officer's breakdown on the western front during World War I, was reissued just before World War II and led to an improvement in court-martial procedure. Herbert joined Punch in 1924, and his series of articles satirizing legal anomalies was published as Misleading Cases (1927).

The novel Holy Deadlock (1934) exposed the limitations of English divorce law. Herbert was elected as as independent MP for Oxford University in 1935, and brought an amendment to the divorce laws, which became law in 1937. Among his other campaigns was a successful attack on the proposal to subject books to purchase tax. He published APH: His Life and Times (1970). Knighted 1945.