Political career of Rab Butler: 1929–1941 Haushofer, a foreign policy advisor to Rudolf Hess, listed Butler as somebody in London who was likely to be sympathetic to peace talks. Political career of Rab Butler: 1929–1941 Richard Austen Butler, Baron Butler of Saffron Walden, (9 December 1902 – 8 March 1982), generally known as R. A. Butler and familiarly known from his initials as Rab, was a prominent British Conservative politician. Butler was elected to Parliament for Saffron Walden in Essex at the 1929 General Election, and soon became a parliamentary assistant to Samuel Hoare, the leading Conservative politician associated with Indian policy. Butler attended the Second
Rab Butler from heart problems. On a visit to Cambridge in 1975, the first time the two men had met in a decade, Macmillan commented on how fat Butler had become. Butler also suffered from a skin complaint from the 1950s, which grew progressively worse, to the point towards the end of his life that he would sometimes appear unshaven in public. In June and October 1976 he spoke in the House of Lords against the planned nationalisation of Felixstowe Docks, which are owned by Trinity College. He argued that Trinity, which has had more Nobel Prize winners than the whole of