Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke

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Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke ( CH , PC ) (born December 6, 1922 in Widnes , † April 20, 2012 ) was a British politician ( Labor Party ). Ashley was a Member of the House of Commons from 1966 to 1992 . There he represented the southern constituency of Stoke-on-Trent . In 1992 he was made a Life Peer .

life and career

Jack Ashley was born in 1922 in Widnes, England, to John Ashley († 1927) and Isabella Bridge. He was one of four siblings.

Ashley attended the local elementary school, St Patrick's School , which he left at the age of 14 to work in the chemical industry. His father died early. He became a crane operator (from 1936 to 1946) and at the age of 22 he was the youngest senior member of his union as a shop steward for the Chemical Workers' Union in the company. During the Second World War he served in the army. After the war, he received a scholarship to study at Ruskin College of the University of Oxford , where he graduated in 1948 with a degree in Economics and Political Science. He continued his studies at Gonville and Caius College , Cambridge , where he was president of the Cambridge Union Society in 1951 .

He did research for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and worked from 1951 to 1957 as a radio producer and from 1957 to 1966 as a television producer for the BBC for the news magazines Panorama and Monitor . He was a member of the General Advisory Council from 1967 to 1969 and from 1970 to 1974. Since 1946 he was a member of the council of Widnes. In the general election of 1951, he ran unsuccessfully in the Finchley constituency .

Membership in the House of Commons

As a member of the Labor Party, he was elected to replace longtime MP Ellis Smith in the 1966 general election as MP for the southern constituency of Stoke-on-Trent in the British House of Commons .

From 1966 to 1967 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister for Economic Affairs ( Secretary of State for Economic Affairs ) Michael Stewart . In December 1967, at the age of 45, he lost his hearing after complications from routine ear surgery to remove a slight loss of hearing caused by perforation of the eardrum at work. This made him the first fully Deaf MP in Britain. After initially planning to resign, he was persuaded to continue exercising his mandate.

He became a passionate supporter of the needs of people disabled by deafness and blindness . He won cross-party sympathy, support and respect in parliament for his efforts. In 1972, in connection with the legal responsibility of the pharmaceutical manufacturer Distillers Company, he supported the decisive movement in parliament, which enforced a distinction between legal obligations and moral obligation. The success of this action prompted the Sunday Times newspaper to continue its moral support campaign for improved compensation for children harmed by thalidomide ( Contergan scandal ), even if their parents' trials were still pending. His group colleague Alf Morris , now Lord Morris of Manchester, also supported this action. Harold Evans , editor of the Sunday Times , later wrote in Good Times, Bad Times , how selflessly Ashley had put off writing his autobiography in order to give full support to the thalidomide campaign. Ashley also supported actions to compensate for vaccine damage and damage caused by the arthritis drug Opren .

From 1974 to 1976 he was Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister for Health and Social Security ( Secretary of State for Health and Social Security ) Barbara Castle . From 1976 to 1978 he was a member of the National Executive Committee of the Labor Party.

In 1986 he and his wife founded the non-profit organization Defeating Deafness , which now supports research under the name Deafness Research UK . In 1992 he did not run again in the general election; George Stevenson succeeded him as an MP in his constituency .

Membership in the House of Lords

Ashley was named a Life Peer as Baron Ashley of Stoke, of Widnes in the County of Cheshire on July 10, 1992 . He made his inaugural address on October 21, 1992 on national security. Since 1993 he has had a cochlear implant that restored a large part of his hearing.

In his later years he advocated the Blue Badge system (disabled parking spaces) to ensure that people with autism were also allowed to use disabled parking spaces. In 2003 he implemented changes to optimize subtitles on television. In 2006 he campaigned for a bill to strengthen the rights of the elderly and people with disabilities.

In the period from 2001 his attendance at meeting days was in the middle range. From the 2009/2010 session, his presence decreased. As of January 2011, he no longer took part in meeting days.

He last spoke up on October 11, 2010 in the House of Lords. He last took part in a vote on April 7, 2010.

Other offices

He was President of the Hearing and Speech Trust from 1985 to 2001. He was also President of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf , later Action on Hearing Loss of the Royal College of Speech & Language Therapists until his death.

Ashley was Chancellor of the University of Staffordshire from 1993 to 2003 .

Honors

In 1975 he became a member of the Order of the Companions of Honor . Ashley had been a member of the Privy Council since 1979.

He was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Gallaudet University in 1975 in recognition of his efforts in serving the deaf and hard of hearing.

Family and death

He married Pauline Kay Crispin in 1951, who died in Surrey in 2003 at the age of 70 . The couple had three daughters, including current journalist Jackie Ashley .

Ashley died on April 20, 2012, at the age of 89, after developing pneumonia.

Publications

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Obituary: Lord Ashley obituary on BBC News on April 21, 2012
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke on thepeerage.com , accessed September 16, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Obituary: Lord Ashley Telegraph obituary of April 21, 2012
  4. ↑ a b c d e Labor peer Lord Ashley of Stoke dies obituary in: The Guardian of April 21, 2012
  5. ↑ The Charity's Founders ( Memento of the original from April 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Biography on Defeating Deafness UK website , accessed April 21, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deafnessresearch.org.uk
  6. ↑ House of Lords: Members 'expenses Members' expenses on the House of Lords website , accessed April 21, 2012
  7. ↑ Labor peer Lord Ashley, 89, BBC News article of April 21, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Ashley, Jack, Baron Ashley of Stoke
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Labor Party politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1922
PLACE OF BIRTH Widnes
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 2012