Austen Harry Albu (21 September 1903 – 23 November 1994) was a British

Labour Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

for 25 years.

Personal life

Albu was born in London in 1903 to Ferdinand and Beatrice Albu. He was educated at

Tonbridge School (God Giveth the Increase) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day and boarding , religion = , president = , head_label ...

, Kent, and the City and Guilds College. He married his first wife, Rose Marks, in 1929. They had two sons before her death in 1956. In 1958, he married the Anglo-

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n social psychologist

Marie Jahoda Marie Jahoda (26 January 1907 – 28 April 2001) was an Austrian-British social psychologist. Biography Jahoda was born in Vienna to a Jewish merchant's family, and like many other psychologists of her time, grew up in Austria where political o ...

Career

During the 1930s and early 1940s, Albu worked at

Aladdin Industries Aladdin is a brand notable for its line of character lunchboxes including Hopalong Cassady, Superman, Mickey Mouse and The Jetsons. Today, Aladdin continues to be a food and beverage products brand and is owned by Pacific Market International, ...

Greenford Greenford () is a suburb in the London Borough of Ealing in west London, England, lying west from Charing Cross. It has a population of 46,787 inhabitants, or 62,126 with the inclusion of Perivale. Greenford is served by Greenford Station (Lo ...

. In the later 1940s, he was Deputy President of the Governmental Sub-Commission of the Control Commission in Germany and then Deputy Director of the British Institute of Management. Albu first won his Edmonton seat at a by-election in 1948, and held it until his retirement at the February 1974 general election. He is noted for heading the Governmental Subcommission of the British Control Commission for Germany during the Allied occupation after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. During his tenure, he advocated for a centrally planned economy for the country, particularly the Social Democratic approach. From 1965 to 1967, he was the

Minister of State for Economic Affairs The Secretary of State for Economic Affairs was briefly an office of Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom. It was established by Harold Wilson in October 1964. Wilson had been impressed by the six-week experiment of a Minister for Econo ...

. He later joined the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

. He was a Fellow of Imperial College of Science and Technology. He was also a writer with some essays, the most edited being ''Socialism and the study of man''. He is also attributed as one of the authors of the ''New Fabian Essays''.

References

External links

*
The Papers of Austen Albu
held at Churchill Archives Centre
Constituency files of Austen Albu
held at

London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 millio ...

' Library Archives and Special Collections 1903 births 1994 deaths Amalgamated Engineering Union-sponsored MPs British Jewish writers Chairs of the Fabian Society Jewish British politicians Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970 People educated at Tonbridge School Social Democratic Party (UK) politicians UK MPs 1945–1950 UK MPs 1950–1951 UK MPs 1951–1955 UK MPs 1955–1959 UK MPs 1959–1964 UK MPs 1964–1966 UK MPs 1966–1970 UK MPs 1970–1974 {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub