Robert Joseph Mellish, Baron Mellish, PC (3 March 1913 – 9 May 1998) was a British politician. He was a long-serving Labour Party MP of 36 years, from 1946 to 1982. He served as the Labour Chief Whip from 1969 until 1976, but in his later years he fell out with his local

Constituency Labour Party __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituenc ...

which he felt had become dominated by people on the left of the Labour Party, and he eventually left the party. He became a life peer in 1985.

Early life

Mellish was born in

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

to John Mellish and his wife Mary Elizabeth Carroll, the thirteenth of fourteen children. His father, a docker, had taken part in the dockers' strikes of 1899 and 1912. After he left school he worked for the

Transport and General Workers' Union The Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU or T&G) was one of the largest general trade unions in the United Kingdom and Ireland – where it was known as the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union (ATGWU) to differentiate its ...

and when the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

started in 1939 he was called up and ended the war as a major in the Royal Engineers fighting the Japanese in South-East Asia.

Political career

When Sir Ben Smith resigned from Parliament, the

Rotherhithe Rotherhithe () is a district of south-east London, England, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping, Shadwell and Limehouse on the north bank, as well as the Isle of D ...

constituency was vacated. Most local opinion favoured Dr John Gillison who represented the area on the

London County Council London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today kno ...

but Mellish was selected after the TGWU dockers' delegates voted for him ''en bloc''. He easily won the constituency in a by-election in 1946. This constituency was expanded in 1950 and named

Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...

. In 1950 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the

Minister of Supply The Minister of Supply was the minister in the British Government responsible for the Ministry of Supply, which existed to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to the national armed forces. The position was campaigned for by many sceptics of the for ...

George Strauss George Russell Strauss, Baron Strauss PC (18 July 1901 – 5 June 1993) was a long-serving British Labour Party politician, who was a Member of Parliament (MP) for 46 years and was Father of the House of Commons from 1974 to 1979. Early life ...

, and then in 1951 as PPS to the Minister for Pensions,

George Isaacs George Alfred Isaacs JP DL (28 May 1883 – 26 April 1979) was a British politician and trades unionist who served in the government of Clement Attlee. Isaacs was born in Finsbury to a Methodist family. He married Flora Beasley (1884–1 ...

. He was also Chairman of the London Regional Labour Party from 1956 to 1977. Mellish was appointed by Harold Wilson as a

Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury is the official title of the most senior whip of the governing party in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Today, any official links between the Treasury and this office are nominal and the title ...

(Chief Whip) which he held during Labour Governments from 1969 to 1970 and again from 1974 to 1976. He was renowned as a tough Chief Whip. He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister for Housing and Local Government from Labour's victory in 1964 until 1967, then becoming Minister of Public Building and Works from 1967 until 1969. He became Minister for Housing and Local Government in 1970; however, this was now under

Anthony Crosland Charles Anthony Raven Crosland (29 August 191819 February 1977) was a British Labour Party politician and author. A social democrat on the right wing of the Labour Party, he was a prominent socialist intellectual. His influential book '' The ...

as Secretary of State for Local Government and Regional Planning. Mellish was in favour of Britain's entry into the

Common Market The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisbo ...

but voted to oppose

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...

's policy of entry in 1971, in accordance with Labour Party policy. A Wilson loyalist, Mellish apparently wept when he heard the news that Wilson had stepped down as Prime Minister in 1976. He supported

Michael Foot Michael Mackintosh Foot (23 July 19133 March 2010) was a British Labour Party politician who served as Labour Leader from 1980 to 1983. Foot began his career as a journalist on ''Tribune'' and the ''Evening Standard''. He co-wrote the 1940 p ...

to replace Wilson, but in vain; James Callaghan won the leadership ballot instead. Mellish (who got on well at a personal level with Foot, despite the great ideological differences between the two men) disliked Callaghan so much that he resigned from the cabinet within months of Wilson's own retirement. At one stage Mellish opened a speech by saying "As I come to this platform, many of you will know that I have never been an anti-racialist". In 1976 Mellish argued that the

Malawi Malawi (; or aláwi Tumbuka: ''Malaŵi''), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeas ...

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

s expelled by

Hastings Banda Hastings Kamuzu Banda (1898 – 25 November 1997) was the prime minister and later president of Malawi from 1964 to 1994 (from 1964 to 1966, Malawi was an independent Dominion / Commonwealth realm). In 1966, the country became a republic and ...

should not be allowed to live in Britain despite possessing British passports:

We cannot go on like this. I do not care what those on this side of the House, or the Opposition side or anywhere else, say. Problems at local level will become worse and worse for our own people unless something is done. All hon. Members know that people come to their surgeries describing the most distressing conditions—terrifying conditions. People born and bred in their own constituencies have been on the housing waiting list for as long as six years. But, on the points system, one must give immigrants preference...People cannot come here just because they have a British passport—full stop.

London Docklands Development Corporation

The government of

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

was keen to get a Labour figure to sit on the

London Docklands Development Corporation The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) was a quango agency set up by the UK Government in 1981 to regenerate the depressed Docklands area of east London. During its seventeen-year existence it was responsible for regenerating an a ...

as vice-chairman in 1980 but the Labour Party was entirely opposed to the creation of the LDDC and refused to nominate. Mellish offered a way through as he was willing to take the post; as a sitting MP he would lose his seat if the post was paid, so a special provision was made that it would be unpaid until the vice-chairman elected to take payment. Mellish's acceptance of a post with the LDDC exacerbated the split with the Bermondsey CLP which had elected a slate of left-wing officers at its annual meeting that same year.

Bermondsey by-election

Mellish was against the shift to the Left in the Labour Party and decided not to stand for election again.

Tam Dalyell Sir Thomas Dalyell, 11th Baronet, , ( ; 9 August 1932 – 26 January 2017), known as Tam Dalyell, was a Scottish Labour Party politician who was a member of the House of Commons from 1962 to 2005. He represented West Lothian from 1962 to 198 ...

later said that "Mellish's final years in the Commons were dogged by controversy and beset with troubles in Bermondsey from hard-left '

yuppie Yuppie, short for "young urban professional" or "young upwardly-mobile professional", is a term coined in the early 1980s for a young professional person working in a city. The term is first attested in 1980, when it was used as a fairly neu ...

' incomers and the

Militant tendency , native_name_lang = cy , logo = , colorcode = , leader = collective leadership(''Militant'' editorial board) , leader1_name = Ted Grant , leader1_title = Political Secretary , leader2_name = Pet ...

, people who were moons apart from the dockers who had selected him four decades earlier".Tam Dalyell,
Mellish, Robert Joseph, Baron Mellish (1913–1998)
, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 9 October 2010. He wanted his ally John O'Grady, Leader of Southwark Borough Council, to be selected in his stead but the constituency party selected

Peter Tatchell Peter Gary Tatchell (born 25 January 1952) is a British human rights campaigner, originally from Australia, best known for his work with LGBT social movements. Tatchell was selected as the Labour Party's parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey ...

, its secretary. Mellish made his discontent public and threatened to resign immediately and force a by-election if Tatchell was endorsed by the Labour Party nationally. Unexpectedly, Labour leader

announced that Tatchell would never be endorsed "so far as I am concerned". However, when, in August 1982, it became clear that Tatchell would be permitted to stand if the Constituency Labour Party selected him again, Mellish announced his resignation from the Labour Party to sit as an Independent MP. In November that year, he resigned his seat in Parliament (by becoming Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds) and forced a 1983 by-election in which Mellish campaigned for O'Grady who stood as a Real Bermondsey Labour candidate. O'Grady performed badly at the by-election although Mellish did take some satisfaction from the heavy defeat of Tatchell by the

Liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...

candidate,

Simon Hughes Sir Simon Henry Ward Hughes (born 17 May 1951) is a former British politician. He is now the Chancellor of London South Bank University, an External Adviser to The Open University, and UK Strategic Adviser to Talgo. Hughes was Deputy Leader ...

. Tatchell said in 2003, after Mellish's death, that Mellish was secretly bisexual and was "persistent" in propositioning Tatchell but warned him when he was rebuffed not to publicise it as no one would believe him.

Later life

Mellish 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 Fo ...

. In 1985 he stood down from the LDDC and accepted a

life peerage In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the peerage whose titles cannot be inherited, in contrast to hereditary peers. In modern times, life peerages, always created at the rank of baron, are created under the Life Peerages A ...

on 12 July 1985 as Baron Mellish, of Bermondsey in Greater London, sitting as an independent. Mellish was a supporter of

Millwall Football Club Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, east ...

and was president of the Millwall Supporters Club. In 1995 during a debate on the commemorations for the fiftieth anniversary of

Victory over Japan Day Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end. The term has been applied to both of the days on ...

, Hugh Jenkins expressed "sorrow and regret" about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mellish replied that

While on board we heard that the war was over. I have never prayed so hard nor been so grateful for anything as I was for that atom bomb. It was the finest thing that ever happened that we should have dropped it on those villains. When we reached Port Swettenham, the ramifications would have been unbelievable. Thousands of lives would have been lost and, at the time, I thanked God for the atom bomb.HL Deb 19 June 1995 vol 565 cc4-7
/ref>

The tallest building in Milton Keynes, Mellish Court, is named after him.

Notes

External links

*
''The Independent'' obituary
by

.
Photograph of Mellish

BBC's The Westminster Hour with an interview with Peter Tatchell concerning the Bermondsey by-election
, - , - , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Mellish, Bob 1913 births 1998 deaths British Army personnel of World War II Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Labour Party (UK) life peers Liberal Democrats (UK) life peers Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ministers in the Wilson governments, 1964–1970 People from Bermondsey Politics of the London Borough of Southwark Royal Engineers officers Social Democratic Party (UK) life peers 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 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983