Following a reference in the Journal of Lib Dem History I recently came across the most extraordinary labour of love, a biographical directory of people who have been Liberal, SDP and Lib Dem parliamentary candidates from 1945 – 2019.
This is a 20 year piece of work by Lionel King who I find from the directory is 87 , fought Kidderminster in 1964, Sutton Coldfield in 1970, and Walsall South 1987, is former chair of Birmingham University Liberal Society, worked as a teacher and then TV/Media lecturer in FE and held many roles in the Birmingham and West Midlands Party.
The directory is divided into 14 parts, by region and gives a fascinating insight into the range of people attracted to become our Parliamentary candidates over the years. In my own constituency of Wimbledon for example I could read about Alick Kay who stood for us in 1945 and was a former independent member of the New South Wales Parliament, George Scott who ran in 1964 who fought two parliament by election for us in Middlesborough East and West both in 1962 and who is decribed as “very tall and slim, he tended to be rather aloof in bearing, not a strong public speaker”, Alison Willott in 1992 and 1997 who was a professional concert singer and mother of Jenny Willott who became Lib Dem MP for Cardiff Central and finally Paul Kohler candidate in 2019 (and current PPC ) and his campaign to Save Wimbledon Police station.
The collator of all this Lionel King would love to hear from candidates with more up to date information (his email can be found in the directory). You can find the directory here:
https://liberalhistory.org.uk/resources-type/election-candidates-directory/
* Simon McGrath is a councillor in Wimbledon and a member of the board of Liberal Reform.
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17 Comments
Blimus. A labour of love indeed, and what will in the be a valuable historical document.
This is a great resource. Is there any likelihood of a new edition of the Dictionary of Liberal Biography?
Whilst a fantastic historical record my late father’s entry (Kenneth Vaus) is somewhat unkind and factually incorrect. His place of birth is incorrect, it fails to mention he was party chair and most upsettingly suggests he died (aged 54) from ‘weight problems’. It was cancer. Don’t know where the authors got their facts from but obviously need checking
What a very considerable achievement ! Would be even more informative and user- friendly if there was an overall index so that candidates’ bios could be found without first having to know in which region they were candidates.Will contact the author to see whether (at at what cost ) this might be done ?
Simon, thanks for the article. And Jane, thanks for your comments, and your email, and our apologies for the mistakes. Inevitably there are going to be errors in some of the entries, and if anyone spots any others please let me know ([email protected]). We’d like to produce an index; if anyone can help with this, do let me know too. As with many party organisations, the Liberal Democrat History Group could do more if we had more people to help – volunteers always welcome!
This is SO interesting, many thanks to all who have worked on it.
But warning – don’t start looking if you ought to be getting on with other things!
I’ve posted the link onto the NE region virtual HQ, others might want to do that for their regions too.
Just wondering, as an aside, is there a list anywhere of party officers? I really want to know who the chair of Stockton Liberals was in 1979.
1997 – Mid Beds. 2001 – Mansfield. I’ll send some biographical details sometime over the next few weeks.
John Wyatt, who contested Bridgwater in 1974, later joined the Conservatives and I believe he became the Conservative leader of the council in Weston-super-Mare.
Suzanne – Elaine or Colin Banton?
@Jane Vaus. Sorry to hear about your experience of reading your late father’s entry. That sounds awful.
I checked my own very short entry. There were three mistakes.
@Duncan Greenland. It would be better if it was just one sequence by candidate name, with an index by constituency. As it is there is duplication and a degree of inconsistency.
Great post Simon ! Indeed this directory a major effort. No mean feat scouring all the sources possible. Some sources perhaps more reliable than others. eg It would seem I was a parliamentary candidate in both West Ham and Rutland at the same time in 2017, which is slightly improbable. Also allegedly I was a porter at Smithfield Meat Market. Hmmmn. Being appointed to the Board of a centre for children with severe disabilities, in my Council Ward 40+ years ago, is described somewhat more generally as ‘being interested in disabled children’ ! I am also described as ‘dir of cons’; maybe LDV readers can shed light on what that means.
@Paul Reynolds
In the list of abbreviations, it gives ‘dir’ as director and ‘cons’ as consultant/consultancy. Does that fit? Myself I think it’s easier to give it in full.
Lionel King is to be congratulated for the work put into this project, but in any work of this kind there are bound to be one or two mistakes. The Reynolds who fought Rutland and Melton in 2017 was Edward not Paul: he also fought it in 2015. The constituency name is Rutland and Melton, as given in his biography, not Rutland & Stamford as given in yours. The biographies for you in the Greater London and East Midlands section are rather different, which seems a bit strange to me.
It’s interesting that Michael White’s piece on the 2009 conference in the Guardian hasn’t been quoted. It reads: “We have had the doctrine of ‘Kill Osama’, then ‘Root them out’, ‘Bolster the Kabul government’ and ‘Isolate the Taliban'” – delegate Paul Reynolds in the Afghan debate. Except that he said “Kill Obama”. Whoops. Don’t give those healthcare knuckleheads ideas, they’ve already got them.”
Twickenham 1974 (both elections) – our candidate was Stephen Kramer KC not Susan Kramer who was elected MP for Richmond many years later.
I am currently engaged in bringing the Liberal/Liberal Democrat Candidates Directory up to date to include details of candidates who contested the General Election of July 1964. I plan to include corrections/additions to entries relating to candidates who stood for election 1945-2019. Please let me have any information you may have. I should also like to thank the many Lib Dem Voice folk for their kind comments on the Directory which I spent nearly twenty years compiling.
In my blog of Sept 4th of this month I should have said I am currently revising the Directory of Liberal/Liberal Democrat Candidates to include the General Election of July 2024 (not 1964 as stated). A thousand apologies! And please do keep sending in corrections/additions.