Goronwy Roberts, Baron Goronwy-Roberts

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Goronwy Roberts, Baron Goronwy-Roberts

Goronwy Owen Roberts, Baron Goronwy-Roberts PC FRSA (born September 20, 1913 in Bethesda , Gwynedd , † July 22, 1981 ) was a British Labor Party politician who was a member of the House of Commons for 29 years and a life peer in 1974 became a member of the House of Lords under the Life Peerages Act 1958 . During the Labor governments of Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan between 1964 and 1970 and 1974 to 1979, he held numerous junior ministerial posts as Minister of State .

Life

Studies and World War II

Roberts, whose father was an elder of the Presbyterian Church of Wales , studied English at the University College of North Wales , Bangor after attending the Ogwen Grammar School in Bethesda , from which he graduated with a Master of Arts (MA) with honors. During his studies, he and the writer Harri Gwynn founded the influential patriotic left-wing group Mudiad Gwerin (popular movement). After graduation, he became in 1938 Fellow at the University of Wales and undertook during this period to 1939 and research stays at King's College London , as well as in other countries of Europe .

After Great Britain entered World War II , Roberts served in the British Army between 1940 and 1941 and then in the Army Reserve from 1941 to 1944. During that time he was also a youth education officer in the county of Caernarfonshire from 1941 to 1944 and then from 1944 to 1945 lecturer for youth leaders at the University College of Swansea . In addition, he regularly moderated radio programs on literary and political topics.

Member of the House of Commons

After the war, Roberts was elected as a candidate for the Labor Party in the general election on July 5, 1945 in the constituency of Caernarfonshire for the first time as a member of the House of Commons, where he was able to prevail Goronwy Owen , who represented this constituency for the Liberal Party since 1923. While Owen received 15,637 votes, he got 22,043 votes himself.

After the dissolution of the constituency of Caernarfonshire , Roberts was re-elected as a member of parliament in the general election of February 23, 1950 in the constituency of Caernarfon , with 18,369 votes (49.1 percent) clearly prevailing against the second-placed ER Thomas from the Liberal Party, who received 7,791 votes (20.9 percent) achieved. In the following general election , he was up to his unexpected defeat in the general election on February 28, 1974 re-elected.

Between 1950 and 1956 Roberts intensively supported the campaign for an independent parliament for Wales and in May 1956 submitted the corresponding petition with 250,000 signatures to the House of Commons. In addition to his own, this list also included the signatures of Labor MPs TW Jones, Cledwyn Hughes , Tudor Watkins and SO Davies .

In addition to his membership of parliament, he was between 1955 and 1959 chairman of the board of directors of the Wrexham- based publishing house Hughes a'i Fab and a member of the boards of the National Library of Wales , the National Museum Cardiff and Aberystwyth University . Roberts, who was a member of the Fabian Society, was also a member of the Lower House Speaker of the Committee Chairs.

Junior Minister and Opposition Spokesman

After the election of the Labor Party in the general election of October 15, 1964 Roberts was prime minister Harold Wilson to the Minister of State appointed in the Ministry of Wales and was as such until April 5, 1966 closest colleague of the Minister of Wales ( Secretary of State for Wales ) James Griffiths and the then Under Secretary ( Under-Secretary of State for Wales ) Harold Finch . At the same time he was from 1964 to 1966 chairman of the Welsh Economic Planning Council and vice-chairman of the committee for the library of the lower house ( House of Commons Library Committee ).

As part of a government reshuffle, he served between April 1966 and August 1967 as Minister of State in the Department for Education and Science , headed by Anthony Crosland , and then between August 1967 and October 1969 as Minister of State in the Foreign Office , the in October 1968 Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Commonwealth of Nations ( Foreign and Commonwealth Office ). During this time he was among the closest aides to the then Foreign Ministers George Brown and Michael Stewart, along with other state ministers such as Alun Jones, Baron Chalfont , Frederick Mulley , Hugh Foot and Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron Shepherd . In 1967 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and in 1968 he was also appointed Privy Councilor .

Most recently he was in the first government of Prime Minister Wilson between October 1969 and June 1970 Minister of State in the Board of Trade ( Board of Trade ), whose president at that time was Roy Mason .

After the Labor Party's defeat in the general election on June 18, 1970 , Roberts was appointed by Harold Wilson in his shadow cabinet , where he was the opposition spokesman for foreign affairs. In 1972 he was given honorary citizenship ( Freedom of the City ) by Caernarfon .

Electoral defeat, Minister of State and Member of the House of Lords

In the general election of February 28, 1974, Roberts suffered an unexpected defeat against the candidate of the Plaid Cymru , Dafydd Wigley , against the national victory of the Labor Party , and thus lost his mandate in the House of Commons after almost 29 years.

Immediately afterwards, he was promoted from Harold Wilson, who became Prime Minister for the second time, to Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs on March 8, 1974, and held this position until December 4 1975, and was then again Minister of State in this Ministry ( Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs ) until the defeat of the Labor Party in the general election of May 3, 1979 and was as such one of the closest collaborators of the then Foreign Ministers James Callaghan , Anthony Crosland and David Owen .

At the same time, at the suggestion of Prime Minister Wilson, he was raised to the nobility by a letters patent dated March 25, 1974 as a life peer with the title Baron Goronwy-Roberts , of Caernarvon and of Ogwen in the County of Caernarvon, and belonged to that until his death House of Lords as a member. Besides his work as Minister of State in the Foreign Ministry, he served as deputy chairman of the ruling Labor faction in the upper house ( Deputy Leader of the House of Lords ).

He also held the position of deputy chairman of the Labor faction after the loss of power after the general election on May 3, 1979, and as such was deputy leader of the opposition in the House of Lords until his death .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kenneth O. Morgan: Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 , 1981, ISBN 0-19-821736-6 , p. 256.
  2. ↑ Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 , 1981, ISBN 0-19-821736-6 , p. 378.
  3. ↑ Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 , 1981, ISBN 0-19-821736-6 , p. 380.
  4. ↑ Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 , 1981, ISBN 0-19-821736-6 , p. 344.
  5. ↑ Miriam Joyce: Ruling Shaikhs and Her Majesty's Government , 2003, ISBN 1-135-77253-3 .
  6. ↑ Nicholas Hagger: The Libyan Revolution , 2009, ISBN 1-84694-256-X , pp. 37, 268 (biographical information)
  7. ^ Presenting the Freedom of the Borough of Caernarfon to Goronwy Roberts, Member of Parliament
  8. ↑ Kenneth O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales, 1880-1980 , 1981, ISBN 0-19-821736-6 , p. 397.
  9. ^ Henry Nicholls: The Way of the Panda: The Curious History of China's Political Animal , 2010, ISBN 1-84668-368-8 , p. 155
  10. ↑ Kwasi Kwarteng: Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World , 2011, ISBN 1-4088-2290-3 , p. 374.
  11. ↑ Kevin Theakston (editor): British Foreign Secretaries Since 1974 , 2004, ISBN 0-203-31016-0 , p. 51.
  12. ^ Anne Twomey: The Chameleon Crown , 2006, ISBN 1-86287-629-0 , p. 54 and a.
  13. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46249, HMSO, London, March 8, 1974, p. 4005 ( PDF , accessed October 16, 2013, English).
personal data
SURNAME Roberts, Goronwy, Baron Goronwy-Roberts
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Roberts, Goronwy Owen, Baron Goronwy-Roberts (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician (Labor), Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH September 20, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Bethesda , Gwynedd
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1981