Albert Hilton, Baron Hilton of Upton

Albert Victor Hilton, Baron Hilton of Upton , JP (* 14. February 1908 in South Walsham , Norfolk , † 3. May 1977 ) was a British union official and politician of the Labor Party . Since May 1965 he was a life peer member of the House of Lords .

Life

Origin and professional career

Hilton came from a Norfolk family. He attended primary school in Upton just before starting to work as a farmer . He was a sporty boy who loved to play soccer. Therefore, he also played in 1932 for the Norfolk team. At the same time he worked as a lay preacher with the Methodists from 1932 . As a member of the National Union of Agricultural Workers (NUAW ), he represented the union in Swaffham .

Since 1936, Hilton has been an active supporter of the Labor Party. He became a full-time Labor Party agent for the East Norfolk constituency . In this capacity he was responsible for organizing the election campaign for the parliamentary by-election in the constituency of East Norfolk (East Norfolk by-election) in January 1939. During World War II , Hilton served in the Royal Army Service Corps with the rank of corporal .

After the end of the Second World War, Hilton moved from the level of officials of the Labor Party to the union of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. There he became union secretary. In 1949 he became a Justice of the Peace and became Vice Chairman (Vice Chairman) of Swaffham Magistrates Court. In 1951 he was elected to the Norfolk County Council , the Norfolk County Council .

Hilton exercised his function as a union official after the beginning of his partisan career; in May 1960 he became Vice President (Vice President) of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. In late 1960 he was part of a six-member delegation from the National Union of Agricultural Workers who traveled to Rhodesia and Nyasaland . In 1964, Hilton became President of the National Union of Agricultural Workers after the death of Edwin Gooch , who was a Member of Parliament for the constituency of North Norfolk until his death . In 1965, Hilton was elected as a government representative to the management (board) of the British Sugar Corporation Ltd.

Party career

In December 1958, Sidney Dye , Labor MP for the constituency of South West Norfolk , was killed in a car accident. Hilton was nominated as a Labor Party candidate for the by-election; it was the first time Hilton ran for a seat in Parliament. In the heavily rural constituency, Hilton concentrated on issues such as the nationalization of property (land nationalization) and the intended abolition of company housing (tied cottages), won the election and officially became a member of the House of Commons in March 1959 . In the British general election in 1959 , a few months later, he won the constituency again, but only by a narrow margin of 78 votes.

Hilton has generally been shown to be a loyal Labor MP in Parliament. During the first few months of his tenure, he signed a motion against the storage of US nuclear weapons in Britain; when he learned that this political position was not supported by the party leadership, he withdrew his signature. In 1960 he publicly stood up for Hugh Gaitskell in the election for party leader of the Labor Party.

In October 1961, Hilton was elected by the party's trade union wing to the Labor Party presidency and became a member of the Labor Party's National Executive Committee (NEC); he replaced the former representative of the National Union of Agricultural Workers. At the Labor Congress in 1963, he responded to a debate on company housing on behalf of the NEC, stating that under a Labor government it would not be possible for a tenant to have to be evicted from a company apartment without first being provided with a replacement apartment has been.

Politically, however, Hilton's constituency became increasingly distant from the Labor Party; in the British general election in 1964 , Hilton lost his parliamentary seat to the Conservative Party candidate and resigned from the House of Commons in October 1964.

Membership in the House of Lords

On May 11, 1965, Hilton was formally promoted to Life Peer and became a member of the House of Lords ; he was named Baron Hilton of Upton, of Swaffham in the County of Norfolk . He gave his inaugural address on June 2, 1965. He spoke in a debate on pricing policy . In Hansard , Hilton's contributions to the House of Lords from 1965 to 1971 are documented. On November 25, 1971, he spoke for the last time in the debate DISEASES OF ANIMALS (AMENDMENT) BILL [HL] with a brief interjection .

Since 1966 he held the honorary post of "Lord in Waiting" in the House of Lords; he was Junior Whip (parliamentary group leader) of his party. In 1966 he became a member of the East Anglia Economic Planning Council; he also served in 1967 as chairman of the National Brotherhood Movement in the Methodist Church. In 1971, Hilton led the Labor Party parliamentary group in the House of Lords in the vote for Britain's application to join the European Community .

Private

In 1944, Hilton married Nelly Simmons. The marriage resulted in two sons; both died before Hilton. His wife died on September 3, 1976; a stroke of fate for Hilton, from which he no longer recovered. Hilton died in May 1977 at the age of 69; his health had been poor in the months before his death.

Literature and Sources

• Who Was Who. A&C Black
• WD Rubinstein: The Biographical Dictionary of Life Peers. St. Martin's Press, 1991, ISBN 0-7108-1218-3 .

Web links

• Albert Hilton at the Hansard (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Albert Victor Hilton, Baron Hilton of Upton on thepeerage.com , accessed September 11, 2016.
2. ↑ RICE INCREASES AND GOVERNMENT POLICY text of the speech on June 2, 1965th