Henry Sheringdon

Henry David Sheringdon (17 January 1858 – 26 March 1952) was a Welsh statesman who served as Chancellor of Panem from 1915 to 1919 and again from 1923 to 1927 as Leader of the Democratic Party, a position that he held from April 1913 until March 1928. In April 1928, Sheringdon, along with fifty-one Democratic MAs defected from the party to form the National Democrat Party. In July of the same year, Sheringdon entered coalition negotiations with the Liberal Party and subsequently formed a majority Liberal-National Democrat Coalition, becoming Vice Chancellor of Panem. In February 1938, Sheringdon, as leader of the National Democrat Party, formed the Centrist Party along with other moderate and centrist parties and became its first leader. He served in that position until 1951, when he retired, aged 93. As a result, he is widely regarded as the founder of the modern-day Centre Party. However, he was not a signatory of the 1951 Centre Party Constitution and, thus, is not legally considered as an official founder of the party. Throughout his political career, Sheringdon represented four different north Wales constituencies, having first been elected as the National Assembly Member for Dwyfor in 1899. In 1950, Sheringdon became the longest-serving MA in history, having served continuously for fifty-one years. This record was broken in 2001 by Conservative MA, John Forsyth; who had been elected in the same year that Sheringdon had become the longest serving MA in history. He is also the only person to have led three separate political parties.