Seymour Cocks

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Frederick Seymour Cocks (born October 25, 1882 in Darlington , † May 29, 1953 in Hendon ) was a British politician (Labor Party).

Life and activity

After attending Plymouth College, Cocks became a journalist. Politically, he was initially a member of the Independent Labor Party. From 1914 to 1919 and from 1925 to after the Second World War he was a member of the Union of Democratic Control. As a journalist he wrote a. a. for the Bath Herald (1899–1903) and the Daily Mirror (1905–1907).

On the occasion of the general election in 1923, Cocks ran for a seat in the British Parliament, the House of Commons, unsuccessfully for the first time : He ran in the Maidstone constituency, but was defeated by his conservative opponent.

In the parliamentary election of 1929 Cocks then succeeded in being elected as a candidate for the Labor Party for the constituency of Broxtowe as a member of the House of Commons. After defending his mandate in the 1931, 1935, 1945 and 1949 elections, he was a member of the House of Commons for twenty-four years, until his death. After his death, his seat was taken over by William Wareby .

From 1933 to 1934 he sat on the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform and from 1945 to 1946 on the Select Committee on Parliamentary Procedure. For two years he also served as chairman of the Labor Group for Foreign Affairs.

In the 1930s, Cocks was one of the most emphatic warners of the dangers posed by Nazi Germany. As early as the middle of the decade, he predicted the course of armament and military aggression actually taken by the Nazi government in the following years in his speeches in the lower house, expressing his fears through quotations from Hitler speeches and excerpts from Mein Kampf , the confession of the German dictator well-founded.

At the end of the 1930s, his political orientation against the Nazi regime and his policies brought Cocks into the sights of the National Socialist police officers, who classified him as an important target: In the spring of 1940, the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a directory of people who In the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht, special SS commandos that followed the occupation troops should be located and arrested with special priority.

During his last years in the House of Commons, Cocks did himself in 1948/1949 by introducing a bill on animal welfare (Anti-Blood Sports Bill) that severely restricted hunting. This was rejected, but led to the establishment of a committee to investigate cruelty against wild animals.

At the end of the 1940s, Cocks, from 1949 to 1950 a member of the British delegation to the consultative assembly of the European Council in Strasbourg, took part in the deliberations on the European Convention on Human Rights, and at the meeting of September 8, 1949, he voted for the admission of one explicit prohibition of torture used in this.

family

Cocks was married to Hilda Catherine Forster Derry and had a son and a daughter with her.

Trivia

Cock's name, which has a sexually disreputable connotation on a phonetic level to English ears, has repeatedly made him the target of derision from political opponents. For example, a parliamentary colleague frowned after reading his name on the notice board, which listed the MPs scheduled as speakers in an upcoming session: "Seymour Cocks. Hear more balls" ("Look at more cocks. And listen to more balls." )

Fonts

  • The Secret Treaties and Understandings. Text of the Available Documents with Introductory Comments and Expalantory Notes , London 1918.
  • ED Morel: the man and his work , 1920.
  • Socialism and Agriculture: A Popular Explanation of the ILP Agricultural Proposals , 1925.
  • Europe's First Parliament: Reflections on the Strasbourg Assembly, 1949 , 1950.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stella Rudmann: Lloyd George and the appeasement of Germany, 1919-1945 , p 210th
  2. ↑ [1] .
  3. ↑ Christopher Silvester: The Literary Companion to Parliament , p. 523. The name Seymour sounds like "see more" (imperative: "See more"),
personal data
SURNAME Cocks, Seymour
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cocks, Frederick Seymour (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British politician (Labor Party)
DATE OF BIRTH October 25, 1882
PLACE OF BIRTH Darlington
DATE OF DEATH May 29, 1953
Place of death Hendon