Frank Beswick, Baron Beswick

Frank Beswick, Baron Beswick, PC (21 August 1911 – 17 August 1987) was a British Labour Co-operative politician.

The Lord Beswick
Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
In office
February 1974  December 1975
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
LeaderThe Lord Shepherd
Preceded byThe Lord Aberdare
Succeeded byThe Lord Goronwy-Roberts
Minister of State for Industry
In office
11 March 1974  4 December 1975
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Preceded byEric Heffer
Succeeded byGerald Kaufman
Chief Whip of the House of Lords
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms
In office
29 July 1967  24 June 1970
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Preceded byThe Lord Shepherd
Succeeded byThe Earl St Aldwyn
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs
In office
11 October 1965  26 July 1967
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Preceded byThe Lord Taylor
Succeeded byWilliam Whitlock
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
18 December 1964  17 August 1987
Life Peerage
Member of Parliament
for Uxbridge
In office
5 July 1945  18 September 1959
Preceded byJohn Llewellin
Succeeded byCharles Curran
Personal details
Born
Frank Beswick

(1911-08-21)21 August 1911
Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, England, UK
Died17 August 1987(1987-08-17) (aged 75)
Political partyLabour Co-operative
OccupationPolitician

Born in 1911 in Nottingham,[1] Beswick's father was a coal miner. He was educated in Nottingham and then at the Working Men's College in London.[1] He became a journalist and was elected to the London County Council.[1] He was in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.[1]

Already a qualified pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War and served with Transport Command. A Sergeant Pilot, he was commissioned Pilot Officer in April 1942, and promoted Flying Officer in October 1942 and Flight Lieutenant in March 1944. He remained in the RAFVR after the war, resigning his commission in 1952.

Beswick was elected to Parliament for Uxbridge in 1945 and served until 1959. He was one of the British observers at the 1946 Bikini atomic tests.[1] Following Labour's loss at the 1951 election, he became civil aviation correspondent for the Reynolds News, having been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Civil Aviation.[1] When he lost his seat in 1959, he was appointed political secretary of the London Co-operative Society.[1]

He was created Baron Beswick, of Hucknall in the County of Nottinghamshire, on 18 December 1964.[2] He served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Commonwealth Office from 1965 then became Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords in 1967. Continuing in the whip role into Opposition in 1970, in 1974 he was appointed Minister of State for Industry and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, serving until 1975, and later became the first Chairman of British Aerospace.[1] In 1975 he was UK signatory of the convention establishing the European Space Agency.

In 1985 he opened the first ever televised debate in the Lords.[1]

References

  1. 'Strong Co-op voices', The Co-operative News, p. 18, 13 May 2008.
  2. "No. 43519". The London Gazette. 18 December 1964. p. 10823.
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