Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence

Encyclopedia : F : FR : FRE : Frederick Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence

Frederick William Pethick-Lawrence, 1st Baron Pethick-Lawrence, PC (December 28 1871 – September 10 1961) was a British Labour politician.

Born Frederick Lawrence, he was the son of wealthy Unitarians who were members of the Liberal Party. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, becoming a barrister.

Lawrence met and fell in love with Emmeline Pethick, an active socialist and campaigner for women's votes. They finally married after Lawrence converted to socialism and from then on Lawrence took part of his wife's name and was known as 'Pethick-Lawrence'. He published various left-wing newspapers and became involved in the Labour Party.

Pethick-Lawrence's involvement in women's rights and especially Emmeline Pankhurst's window-smashing campaign landed him in prison on a number of occasions. In 1923, he was elected Member of Parliament for Leicester West and was Financial Secretary to the Treasury from 1929 until he lost his seat in 1931. He was elected for Edinburgh East in 1935 and in 1942 acted as Leader of the Opposition to the coalition government.

In 1945, Pethick-Lawrence was elevated to the peerage as Baron Pethick-Lawrence. From 1945–47, he was Secretary of State for India and was involved in the negotiations that led to India's independence in 1947. The barony became extinct on his death.

External link

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUpethick.htm

|- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;" |- style="text-align: center;"

|- style="text-align: center;"

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.