Tom Williams, Baron Williams of Barnburgh

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Thomas Williams, Baron Williams of Barnburgh, PC (18 March 1888 – 29 March 1967[1]) was a British coal miner who became a Labour Party politician.[2]

Career

Born in Blackwell, Derbyshire,[3] Williams grew up in Swinton in Yorkshire, and began work in 1899 in Kilnhurst colliery.[3] He became involved in trade unionism and joined the Independent Labour Party, switching briefly to the British Socialist Party during World War I before joining the Labour Party. In 1918, he was elected as a Labour member of the Bolton-upon-Dearne Urban District Council.

He was elected at the 1922 general election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Don Valley,[1][4][5] and held the seat until he stepped down at the 1959 general election.[6]

In Parliament

In the First Labour Government, from January to October 1924, Williams was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Noel Buxton, the Minister of Agriculture.[2] In the Second Labour Government from 1929 to 1931, he was PPS to the Minister of Labour, Margaret Bondfield.[2]

Williams first held ministerial office in Winston Churchill's wartime Coalition Government, when he was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries from 1940 to 1945,[2] serving under the Conservative minister Robert Hudson.[3] He was made a Privy Counsellor in August 1941.[7] In Clement Attlee's post-war Labour government, he was Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food from 1945 to 1951,[2] and after Labour lost the 1951 general election he was the opposition spokesperson on Agriculture until 1959.[2]

After his retirement from the House of Commons in 1959, he was created a life peer on 2 February 1961 taking the title Baron Williams of Barnburgh, of Barnburgh in the West Riding of the County of York.[8][9]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "D" (part 2)[self-published source][better source needed]
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.(subscription required)
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  5. The London Gazette: no. 32775. p. 8712. 8 December 1922. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
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  8. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 42231. p. 8889. 27 December 1960.
  9. The London Gazette: no. 42272. p. 933. 7 February 1961.

External links


Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Don Valley
19221959
Succeeded by
Richard Kelley
Political offices
Preceded by Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries
(with The Lord Moyne, to 1941;
The Duke of Norfolk), 1941–1945

1940–1945
Succeeded by
The Duke of Norfolk and
Donald Scott
Preceded by Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries
1945–1951
Succeeded by
Thomas Dugdale