Bill Rodgers (politician)

Bill Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank, 2019

William "Bill" Thomas Rodgers, Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank , PC (born October 28, 1928 in Liverpool ) is a British politician .

biography

After finishing school, he studied at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford and then worked from 1953 to 1960 as Secretary General of the Fabian Society .

He began his political career in 1962 when he was elected as a Labor Party candidate for the House of Commons in a by-election, where he represented the constituency of Stockton-on-Tees until 1983 . In the following period he took over during the governments of the Labor Party from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976 under Prime Minister Harold Wilson initially some junior ministerial posts.

In September 1976, Prime Minister James Callaghan finally appointed him to succeed John Gilbert as Secretary of State for Transport. He held this office until the end of Callaghan's tenure on May 4, 1979 after being defeated by the Conservative Party in the May 3, 1979 general election .

Rodgers was a strong supporter of Britain's membership of the European Communities (EC) and was concerned about the Labor Party's growing left-wing course after Michael Foot was elected Leader in 1980. In 1981 he left the Labor Party and co-founded the Labor Party also dissatisfied former Labor Ministers Roy Jenkins , David Owen and Shirley Williams ("Gang of Four") the Social Democratic Party (SDP) .

Although he was defeated in the general election on June 9, 1983 and lost his seat in the lower house, he continued to play a leading role in the organization of the SDP and was its deputy chairman from 1982 to 1987. In this role, he played a key role the alliance of the SDP with the Liberal Party , which also saw itself disadvantaged by the British electoral system. Although he was a staunch supporter of this alliance, which eventually led to the unification of the two parties to form the Liberal Democrats in 1988 , he retired from the party executive committee in 1987.

From 1987 to 1994 he was General Director of the Royal Institute of British Architects .

For his services he was raised to the nobility on February 12, 1992 as a Life Peer with the title Baron Rodgers of Quarry Bank , of Kentish Town in the London Borough of Camden , and thereby also became a member of the House of Lords . In May 1997, he succeeded Roy Jenkins, the current Lord Jenkins of Hillhead, chairman of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords. He handed this office over in June 2001 to Shirley Williams, now Baroness Williams of Crosby.

literature

• Chambers Biographical Dictionary . 2002, ISBN 0-550-10051-2 , p. 1298.

Web links

• Mr William Rodgers at Hansard (English)
• Biography on the website of the House of Lords (English)