Patrick Gordon Walker

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Patrick Chrestien Gordon Walker, Baron Gordon-Walker CH (7 April 1907 – 2 December 1980) was a British Labour Party politician. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for nearly thirty years, and served twice as a Cabinet minster. He is best-remembered for the circumstances surrounding the loss of his Smethwick parliamentary seat at the 1964 general election, in a bitterly racial campaign.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Political career 3 Publications 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Early life

Born in Worthing, Gordon Walker was the son of Alan Lachlan Gordon Walker, a Scottish Judge in the Indian Civil Service. He was educated at Wellington College and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he served as history tutor until 1941.

From 1940 to 1944, he worked for the BBC's European Service, where from from 1942 he arranged the BBC's daily broadcasts to Germany. In 1945 he worled as Assistant Director of BBC's German Service working from Radio Luxembourg, travelling with the British forces. He broadcast about the liberation of the German concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, and wrote a book on the subject called "The Lid Lifts".

From 1946 to 1948, he was Chairman of the British Film Institute.

[edit] Political career

He first stood for Parliament at the 1935 general election, when he was unsuccessful in the Conservative-held Oxford constituency.

Gordon Walker did not contest the 1945 general election, but was elected later in 1945 as Member of Parliament (MP) for Smethwick in a by-election on 1st October, after Labour's Alfred Dobbs had been killed in a car accident one day after winning the seat at the 1945 general election.

Once in Parliament, Gordon Walker was promoted rapidly through the ranks of Clement Attlee's Labour government. In 1946, he was appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Herbert Morrison, the Leader of the House of Commons. From 1947 to 1950 he was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Commonwealth Relations Office, and in 1950 he joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, serving until Labour's defeat at the 1951 general election.

At the 1964 general election, following a successful career in opposition, he was destined to become Foreign Secretary in a widely anticipated Labour government. However, Gordon Walker was defeated in controversial circumstances by the Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths. Smethwick had been a focus of immigration from the Commonwealth in the economic and industrial growth of the years following World War II and Griffiths ran a campaign critical of the opposition's, and the government's, policy. There were rumours that Griffiths' supporters had covertly circulated the slogan If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour. Many felt that Gordon Walker had pandered to such sentiment when his local party ran an eve-of-poll leaflet saying:

Be fair. Immigrants only arrived in Smethwick in large numbers during the past ten years--while the Tory [conservative] government was in power. You can't blame Labour or Gordon Walker for that. Labour favours continued control of immigration, stricter health checks and deportation of those convicted of criminal offences. Labour will give local authorities greater power to help overcrowding. Labour will provide new and better housing.

His reputation on racial issues was further damanged by the accusation that, while at the Commonwealth Office in 1951, he had obstructed Seretse Khama's chieftancy of Bechuanaland under pressure from South Africa's objections to Khama's marriage to a white woman.

Nevertheless, he was appointed to the Foreign Office by Harold Wilson and stood for the safe Labour constituency of Leyton in the Leyton by-election in January 1965, losing again, and was forced to resign as Foreign Secretary. After a sabbatical conducting research in Southeast Asia, he finally won Leyton in the 1966 general election. Following this election, he served in the Cabinet in 1967-8, first as Minister without Portfolio, then as Secretary of State for Education and Science. On his retirement from the Cabinet in 1968, he was made a Companion of Honour.

Gordon-Walker retired from the House of Commons at the 1974 general election. On 4th July that year he was made a life peer as Baron Gordon-Walker, of Leyton in the County of Essex in 1974 and was briefly a Member of the European Parliament.

Gordon Walker died in London, aged 73.

[edit] Publications

• Gordon Walker, Patrick (1939). An outline of Man’s history. London: N.C.L.C. Publishing Society. 
• Gordon Walker, Patrick (1951). Restatement of liberty. London: Hutchinson. 
• Gordon Walker, Patrick Chrestien (1945). The Lid Lifts: an account of the author’s experiences during two visits to occupied Germany in the spring of 1945. London: Victor Gollancz. 
• Gordon Walker, Patrick Chrestien (1962). The Commonwealth. London: Secker & Warburg. 
• Gordon Walker, Patrick Chrestien (1970). The Cabinet. London: Cape. ISBN 0224618199. 
• Gordon Walker, Patrick Chrestien (c. 1991). in Robert Pearce (editor): Patrick Gordon Walker: political diaries 1932-1971. London: Historians' Press. ISBN 187227305X. 

[edit] See also

• Smethwick (UK Parliament constituency)
• Smethwick by-election, 1945
• Leyton (UK Parliament constituency)
• Leyton by-election, 1965

[edit] External links

• Janus: Papers of Baron Gordon-Walker
• BBC Recording of Gordon-Walker reporting from newly liberated Bergen Belsen

[edit] References

• Craig, F. W. S. [1969] (1983). British parliamentary election results 1918-1949, 3rd edition, Chichester: Parliamentary Research Services. ISBN 0-900178-06-X. 
• This page incorporates information from Leigh Rayment's Peerage Page.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Alfred Dobbs	Member of Parliament for Smethwick 1945–1964	Succeeded by Peter Griffiths
Preceded by Ronald Buxton	Member of Parliament for Leyton 1966–1974	Succeeded by Bryan Magee
Political offices
Preceded by Philip Noel-Baker	Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations 1950-1951	Succeeded by Lord Ismay
Preceded by Harold Wilson	Shadow Foreign Secretary 1963-1964	Succeeded by R. A. Butler
Preceded by R. A. Butler	Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs 1964-1965	Succeeded by Michael Stewart
Preceded by Anthony Crosland	Secretary of State for Education and Science 1967–1968	Succeeded by Edward Short

Persondata
NAME	Gordon Walker, Patrick Chrestien
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Baron Gordon-Walker, of Leyton
SHORT DESCRIPTION	British Labour Party politician.
DATE OF BIRTH	7 April 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Worthing
DATE OF DEATH	2 December 1980
PLACE OF DEATH	London