Tag Archives: obituaries

Kathryn Ball

Obituary: Jonathan Webber MBE DL 24th February 1957 – 15th February 2016

By Kathryn Ball | Fri 19th February 2016 - 9:00 am

Jonathan Webber 1Jonathan Webber, the former West Midlands Chair (2011 – 2013) and one of the most popular figures among West Midlands Liberal Democrats, has died after a long battle with cancer, which he had described as “something of a nuisance and an inconvenience.” He was 58 years old and died peacefully at home cared for by his partner Kathryn Ball.

Born in Oxford, Jonathan spent most of his working life in a business environment.  Fluent in Greek he spent 17 years working in Athens and Salonika as a literary agent / publisher, whilst there he founded the “Athens Ramblers’ Cricket Club” and the “Thessaloniki Cricket Club”, he became Chief Executive of the British Greek Chamber of Commerce in Athens and returning to the UK in the ‘90s he joined the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) advising on trade with Greece and the Balkans.

More recently Jonathan was Director of International Trade at Greater Birmingham Chambers of Commerce where he was described as a “real one-off…a maverick.” Former Chamber Chief Executive Jerry Blackett said: “I realised he was never going to respond to traditional management. He was not one for bureaucracy or for rules but he never missed his targets and he got the best out of his team.”

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Celia Thomas

Baroness Celia Thomas writes…Derek Ezra 1919-2015

By Celia Thomas | Thu 7th January 2016 - 11:55 am

Liberal Democrat peer Derek Ezra died on 22 December 2015 at the age of 96. Celia Thomas remembers him.

Liberal Peers were absolutely delighted when Derek Ezra took the Liberal whip on becoming a Peer in 1983. He was one of the best known men in public life at the time, having been a well-respected Chairman of the Coal Board from 1972 to 1982. He had been a Liberal since university days, he told us, where he joined the Cambridge University Liberal Club in 1936. There he was a friend of Richard Wainwright, who was later to become the Liberal MP for Colne Valley.

A few years later, when war broke out, Derek became a gunner, rising eventually to the rank of Lt. Colonel; he later joined British Intelligence, where he was secretary of the Combined Intelligence Objectives Sub-Committee. After the war, he spent four years in Luxembourg as a member of the UK delegation to the European Coal and Steel Community where he worked with Jean Monnet, largely regarded as the founding father of the European Community. From that time on, Derek was a passionate, but not uncritical, supporter of the European Union.

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Tony Greaves

Obituary: Dennis Wrigley

By Tony Greaves | Thu 12th November 2015 - 9:55 am

Dennis Wrigley, who died earlier this week, was an inspirational pioneer in the rejuvenation of the Young Liberals and the Liberal Party in the Manchester region and the North West during the 1950s and 1960s.

Dennis came to national prominence in the High Peak by-election in 1961, in the year before Orpington. A combination of the rising national Liberal vote, a lot of outside help including Manchester students and YLs, and Dennis’s personal charisma and campaigning energy produced a Liberal vote of 30.5%, narrowly third but up by more than 10% from the General election in 1959. He contested the seat at the following three General Elections, polling well but never as well as at the by-election.

In 1964 the Labour candidate was the subsequent Liberal Democrat peer and Lords Chief Whip John Roper. The story that both of them told is (from Dennis) “Of course I was able to preach in every chapel in the constituency” with the riposte from John “Yes but I drank in every pub!” Unfortunately neither won that year.

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Obituary: Ruth Pentney, Councillor, agent and dedicated activist

By Nicholas Pentney | Wed 16th September 2015 - 9:55 am

Ruth Pentney“F*** off!” That was Ruth’s succinct response to those who requested her to back ‘Lib Dems 4 Change’ and their ill-fated attempt to oust Nick Clegg as leader in the summer of last year. That two worded response aptly illustrates the three worded summary of Ruth given by former Torbay MP Adrian Sanders, when he described her as: “tenacious, dependable and loyal.”

Attracted by the ‘self-help’ tradition that the party was closely associated with, Ruth joined the Liberals in the early 1970s. Having known what it means to be poor, she saw the hope that the  Liberals could inspire in deprived communities. She fiercely rejected the individualistic values of the Conservatives and the statism of Labour. Only the Liberals offered the vision of an equal society in which communities, once unburdened by the oppression of poverty, could stand on their own feet and strive for the good of all their members. Inspired by this vision she would go on to spend the next four decades passionately fighting to advance the cause of liberalism, and in the mid-nineties she would help turn Torbay yellow whereas before it had only ever been blue.

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Paul Walter

Walter James, last surviving Liberal Party candidate from the 1945 General Election, dies aged 103

By Paul Walter | Sat 29th August 2015 - 3:56 pm

The Times (£) has reported the death of Walter James, who was the Liberal Party candidate for Bury in the 1945 General Election. As such, he is thought to be the last Liberal candidate from 1945 to pass on, leaving, it is believed, just two candidates surviving from that election, both of them from the Labour party: Denis Healey and Jeremy Hutchinson, now Baron Hutchinson of Lullington.

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Obituary: Bob Pritchard

By Arnie Gibbons | Tue 14th April 2015 - 7:05 pm

ek focuses2Last night some of you may have been watching ‘Code of a Killer’ the story of the first murderer to be caught through DNA fingerprinting, pioneered by Dr Alec Jefferys at Leicester University.

Professor Robert (Bob) Pritchard, the man who set up and recruited him to the Genetics Dept at the University passed away over the weekend after a long period in a vegetative state. As well as being a notable scientist he was a prominent Liberal activist for over two decades.

Alec Jeffreys said that as soon as he met Professor Robert Pritchard, who founded the university department of genetics, he felt drawn to it.

Bob created a collegiate environment, almost on the lines of a commune: no prima donnas, just everyone interacting well with each other. I knew I could be happy within that, so I took a gamble, and have never regretted it.’

When the Tories in Leicester proposed to make Gary Lineker a freeman of the city in a fit of blatant populism the Labour administration responded by putting Alec Jeffreys forward. At the ceremony they were mortified when Alec spent part of his speech praising Bob as a professional inspiration. The Labour councillors hated Bob as the leader of the Liberal Democrat group on the council and the most effective challenger to the Labour orthodoxy in what was effectively a one-party state.

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The Voice

Tributes to Sutton’s Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader, Colin Hall

By The Voice | Tue 7th April 2015 - 6:52 pm

We’ve heard the sad news that Cllr Colin Hall, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader of Sutton Borough Council, died last week after a short illness. He was only 53.

Tributes have been paid to him on the Sutton Liberal Democrat website. Go below the cut to read a beautifully crafted and heartfelt obituary by his old friend Ed Fordham.

Council leader Ruth Dombey said:

Colin was a wonderful colleague and a good friend. He was passionate about the borough and dedicated to his work as a councillor.

His particular interest was the environment and how to make Sutton a more sustainable place to live. He was highly respected across London for his knowledge and experience and tributes are flowing in from people who admired his work.

He was kind and generous and always ready to help and guide others.  Colin’s wife and three children are overwhelmed by depth and warmth of the huge number of tributes they have received.

He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

Tom Brake MP said:

It was very clear that he was totally committed to Sutton and he had a particular commitment and interest in environmental issues. His passing will be a great loss to Sutton and my thoughts are with his family at this very difficult time.

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