Richard Shenton

Senator Shenton represented the Island at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Canada, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. He was responsible for the establishment of the ‘Small Nations Conference’ and the ‘Small Disaster Fund’. In 2004 he returned to the States Assembly with a landslide victory in the by-election caused by the resignation of the late Senator Christopher Lakeman. He finally officially retired from the political arena in 2006 at the end of his term of office. However he was delighted when his son Ben was elected as Senator in 2006 and was always on hand to offer insight, guidance, and opinion. The introduction of the Winter Fuel Allowance for pensioners was a good example of this type of collaboration – the concept engineered by him and pushed through the Assembly, despite vigorous opposition, by Ben – using a few political tricks to ensure that it was adopted. In spite of his busy political life, he remained Managing Director of George Troy & Sons, Master Stevedores; he was Chairman of St. Helier Port Services, a Director of Guernsey Stevedores Limited, a non-executive Director of the Royal Bank of Scotland and of Capital House Investments Management Limited, and Chairman of the Hotel L’Horizon.

He was re-elected in a by-election in 2004 achieving 7,144 votes with a majority of 5,500.

In October 1993 he received 8,755 votes polling sixth.

Dick Shenton was President of a number of committees, including tourism in 1993

Dick Shenton was first elected to the States of Jersey as Senator in 1969 and served until 1999. In 1969 he topped the poll with 13,220 votes. In 1975 he topped the poll with 17,221 votes. In 1981 he topped the poll with 17,256 votes. In 1987 he topped the poll with 12,838 votes. No one in Jersey politics, apart from Senator Shenton, has topped the poll 4 times and the record number of votes was only beaten in 2011 with a much larger electorate.

Following the liberation of the Channel Islands, he joined the Royal Air Force, serving in the Middle East and Italy until he was demobilised in 1948. After a period of working in the dock industry he met and married Jill Mason and they emigrated to Canada in 1954. After six years in Canada, he, his wife and two infant daughters returned to Jersey and he resumed his career in the dock industry, eventually taking over as Managing Director of the only stevedoring company, and his name has been synonymous with the docks from that time. Dick Shenton is the father of four children, two daughters and two sons, and has seven grandchildren. He was a great family man and is well known for his charitable work and his loyalty to his native island. When he stood for election in 1969, he was elected a Senator with an all-island mandate, finishing top of the poll – a feat which he equaled several times. No other politician had topped any island election twice, and it is not an exaggeration to say that, having achieved this feat four times, Dick Shenton was without doubt the most popular choice of the island’s population. In 1981, 1987 and 2004 he topped every parish poll, proving his popularity with town and country residents alike.

Richard Joseph Shenton the son of Benjamin Henry Shenton, B.E.M. and Kathleen Mary Troy. The third of seven children, he was educated at De La Salle College in Jersey. He and his family lived in Jersey throughout the five years (1940-1945) occupation by the Germans. His father was imprisoned by the occupying forces in 1944, and sadly in 1942 and 1943 his elder brother and sister died in their teens of malnutrition and tuberculosis.

Richard Joseph "Dick" Shenton OBE (25 October 1926 – 2 January 2013), born in St. Helier, was a politician in Jersey. He retired in 2005.