George Wallace, Baron Wallace of Coslany

George Douglas Wallace, Baron Wallace of Coslany (born April 18, 1906 in Cheltenham , Gloucestershire , † November 11, 2003 in Sidcup , London Borough of Bexley ) was a British Labor Party politician who , intermittently, was a member of the House of Commons and became a member of the House of Lords in 1975 when Life Peer under the Life Peerages Act 1958 . During his long membership in the UK Parliament , he dealt in particular with the effects of the Beveridge Report, named after William Henry Beveridge , of December 1, 1942, which laid the foundations for the British welfare state .

Life

After attending Cheltenham Central School, Wallace became involved in the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Bristol and later in Guildford . After his marriage he settled in Sidcup in 1932 and began his political career in local politics as a member of the city council between 1937 and 1946 . During this time he was chairman of various committees of the city council such as for example for education and health and temporarily also vice chairman of the Queen Mary's Hospital in Sidcup. During the Second World War he did his military service in the fighter aircraft command of the Royal Air Force ( RAF Fighter Command ) and was last promoted to sergeant .

After the war, Wallace was elected for the first time as a member of the House of Commons in the general election of July 5, 1945 as a candidate for the Labor Party in the constituency of Chislehurst . He succeeded Waldron Smithers , who had represented this constituency for the Conservative Party in the House of Commons for 21 years , but was now running for the newly created constituency of Orpington and won it with 20,388 votes (48.6 percent). In the subsequent elections on February 23, 1950 , he lost this constituency - albeit by a narrow margin of 167 votes - to the candidate of the conservative Tories , Patricia Hornsby-Smith . During the first electoral term he was between 1947 and 1950 Assistant Parliamentary Secretary of the ruling Labor Group ( Assistant Government Whip ).

In the general election of October 15, 1964 , he was re-elected to the House of Commons in the Norwich North constituency. In this constituency, he followed his fellow party member John Paton and was able to prevail in his first election with 18,111 votes (60.9 percent) against his conservative opponent Amédée Turner , who only got 11,620 votes (39.1 percent). Wallace represented the constituency until the general election on February 28, 1974 and was then replaced by his party colleague David Ennals . During his long membership in the UK Parliament, he dealt in particular with the effects of the Beveridge Report, named after William Henry Beveridge, of December 1, 1942, which laid the foundations for the British welfare state.

After the Labor Party won the general election on October 15, 1964, he took on a number of subordinate posts in the government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson , initially between 1964 and 1965 as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Lord President of the Council Herbert Bowden . He then acted in 1965 briefly as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Relations of the Commonwealth of Nations ( Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations ) Arthur Bottomley , before last from 1967 to 1968 Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister (of Housing and Local Government Minister of Housing and Local Government ), Anthony Greenwood , was.

During his last legislative term, he was a member of the committee chairman's panel in the House of Commons from 1970 to 1974 and from 1970 to 1986 he was also a member of the Commonwealth, which was responsible for the establishment, development and maintenance of British military cemeteries in the countries of the Commonwealth Was Graves Commission (CWGC).

After leaving the House of Commons, Wallace was raised to the nobility by a letters patent dated January 17, 1975 as a life peer with the title Baron Wallace of Coslany , of Coslany in the City of Norwich, and belonged to the House until his death of Lords as a member.

Between 1975 and 1977 he was also a delegate of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and of the Western European Union (WEU). As Lord-in-Waiting , he was from 1977 to 1979 in the House of Lords spokesman for the Labor Group on Social Security.

Web links

• George Wallace at Hansard (English)
• Entry in Cracroft's Peerage
• Entry in Leigh Rayment Peerage
• George Douglas Wallace, Baron Wallace of Coslany, on thepeerage.com , accessed September 13, 2016.
• Entry in They Work For You (House of Lords)
• Obituary: Lord Wallace of Coslany . In: The Guardian, September 18, 2000