Alf Morris, Baron Morris of Manchester

Alfred Morris, Baron Morris of Manchester , AO , QSO , PC (born March 23, 1928 in Manchester - † August 12, 2012 ) was a British politician of the Labor Party and Co-operative Party .

Political career

Morris served as MP for the constituency of Manchester and Wythenshawe from 1964-1997 . He was the private parliamentary secretary of Fred Peart , the Minister of Agriculture.

Morris, whose father had been exposed to poison gas in the First World War and lost an eye and a leg, and whose health deteriorated as a result until his death, led a campaign for the disabled. After his father's death, his mother did not receive a widow's pension. Forty years later, after becoming Minister of Disability, Morris created better pensions for similar cases by changing the law.

In 1970 he successfully introduced the Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act , the first law in the world to grant people with disabilities special rights. In 1974 he became the world's first minister for the disabled. In 1991, he introduced the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill and campaigned on the Gulf War Syndrome .

He was appointed Lord Morris of Manchester , of Manchester in the County of Greater Manchester as a Life Peer in the House of Lords in 1997 . He was also a lifelong union member of the GMB Union and served as President of the 1995 Co-operative Congress.

biography

A street in Ancoats, Manchester

Morris was one of the eight children of George Henry Morris and his wife Jessie Murphy and grew up in poor circumstances on Grace Street, Ancoats , Manchester.

In 1935 the family moved to a new housing estate in Newton Heath parish . The family's living conditions improved there. He attended Brookdale Park School Newton Heath, Manchester with his school friend Harold Evans , who, as editor of The Sunday Times , would later write an editorial in which he said, "As the time drew near the 1970 general election, Alf was Morris's Bill was the only bill worth getting. " He later went to evening school and from the age of 14 worked as a secretary in the local Wilsons brewery.

Morris completed his military service in the army from 1946-48, mainly in the Middle East. He then studied at Ruskin College , Oxford (1949–1950), received a Bachelor of Arts in Modern History from St. Catherine's College , Oxford in 1953 , and did a postgraduate teacher training course at Manchester University . He first worked as a school teacher in Manchester and then from 1954 to 1956 as a university teacher in social history and from 1956 to 1964 as a clerk for industrial relations for the energy supply industry.

family

He married Irene Jones in 1950 and had two sons and two daughters with her. His brother Charles Morris and niece Estelle Morris were also MPs for the Labor Party. Lord Morris died in hospital on August 12, 2012 after a brief illness at the age of 84.

Web links

• Catalog of Alfred Morris's writings in the archives of the London School of Economics

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Cleminson, Peter " Alf Morris: the people's parliamentarian ( Memento of July 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive )", The Legion . Retrieved January 23, 2010
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} " Inspirational MP owes it all to his childhood ", The Advertiser , October 11, 2007. Retrieved January 23, 2010
3. ^ ^{A b c} Frame, Don (2008) " Lord Morris tells his tale, " Manchester Evening News , January 21, 2008. Retrieved January 23, 2010
4. ^ Forty years of Chronically Sick & Disabled Persons Act , BBC. May 21, 2010. Retrieved November 29, 2010. 
5. ^ " Alf Morris: The law that changed the world, one step at a time, " Yorkshire Post , December 3, 2009. Retrieved January 23, 2010
6. ↑ Congress Presidents 1869–2002 . February 2002. Archived from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved May 10, 2008.
7. ^ Dalyell, Tim (2006) " Sir Robert Calderwood, " The Independent , June 2, 2006. Retrieved January 23, 2010
8. ↑ BBC News - Disabled rights pioneer Lord Morris of Manchester dies . bbc.co.uk. May 21, 2010. Retrieved August 14, 2012.