Ted Bramley

Edward F. 'Ted' Bramley (* 1905 in Westminster ; † February 1989 ) was a British politician of the Communist Party .

Life and activity

Bramley grew up as one of four children of worker Frank Bramley and his wife Alice in poor conditions in London . The father was a social democrat and the mother was a supporter of the women's rights movement. During his childhood, the family temporarily moved to North America, where the father worked in Detroit and Ontario , before returning to Great Britain during the First World War .

Bramley dropped out of school in 1919 at the age of 14 to instead work as an engineer until 1926. At that time he joined the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). In 1927 he became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), in which he quickly made a career as a functionary: in 1932 he was finally admitted to the Central Committee of the CPGB, the party's innermost leadership circle.

In the general election of 1931 and a by-election in 1934, Bramley ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the House of Commons , the British Parliament, in the constituency of Hammersmith North . In 1937 he was appointed District Secretary of the CPGB for the area of ​​the British capital, London, to succeed Dave Springhall . He stayed in this post until 1947. His application to join the British Army during the Second World War was turned down because of tuberculosis .

Due to his position as one of the most prominent communists in Great Britain, Bramley came into the sights of the National Socialist police organs at the end of the 1930s : In the spring of 1940 the Reich Security Main Office in Berlin put him on the special wanted list GB , a list of people who the Nazi surveillance apparatus considered particularly dangerous or considered important, which is why, in the event of a successful invasion and occupation of the British Isles by the Wehrmacht , they should be located and arrested by special SS units following the occupation forces with special priority.

In 1946 Bramley was elected to London County Council for the Mile End district. In 1947 he resigned as CPGB District Secretary in London. In 1951 he applied for the last time - in the constituency of Stepnjy - for a seat in the British Parliament.

At the beginning of the 1950s, Bramley withdrew from the public. He settled in Herefordshire , where he devoted himself to farming.

Web links

• Brief biography of Bramley

Individual evidence

1. ^ Entry on Bramley on the special wanted list GB (reproduced on the website of the Imperial War Museum in London) .