David Alec Webb (6 March 1931 – 30 June 2012) was a British actor and anti-censorship campaigner.

Early life

Webb was born in

Luton Luton () is a town and unitary authority with borough status, in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 census, the Luton built-up area subdivision had a population of 211,228 and its built-up area, including the adjacent towns of Dunstable a ...

, the second child and only son of Alec Webb, and attended Luton Grammar School from 1942 to 1950. He completed his

National Service National service is the system of voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939. The ...

from 1950 to 1952, and trained at the

Royal Academy of Dramatic Art The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...

from 1952 to 1954.

Career

In 1954 he joined the York Repertory Company, in 1955 the Bromley Repertory Company, and from 1955 to 1956 he toured in the play ''Love From Judy''. He worked in television from the late 1950s onwards appearing in scores of programmes including ''

Emergency Ward 10 ''Emergency Ward 10'' is a British medical soap opera series shown on ITV between 1957 and 1967. Like ''The Grove Family'', a series shown by the BBC between 1954 and 1957, ''Emergency Ward 10'' is considered to be one of British television's ...

'', ''

Dixon of Dock Green ''Dixon of Dock Green'' was a BBC police procedural television series about daily life at a fictional London police station, with the emphasis on petty crime, successfully controlled through common sense and human understanding. It ran from 19 ...

'', and '' Doctor Who'', among many others. He featured briefly in ''

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

'' as an unnamed RAF officer.

NCROPA

In April 1976, he set up the anti-censorship pressure group, the National Campaign for the Repeal of the 1959

Obscene Publications Act Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by Lord ...

; this was later amended to

National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts The National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts (NCROPA) was an anti-censorship campaigning organisation whose goal was the reform of Britain's obscenity laws, in particular the Obscene Publications Act 1959. It was set up in ...

(NCROPA). NCROPA was very active from its inception through the 1980s, and in 1983 Webb stood as the anti-censorship candidate against the incumbent Prime Minister

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 ...

in her Finchley constituency. He was also a member of the

Campaign Against Censorship The Campaign Against Censorship (CAC) is a non-party political pressure group that opposes censorship and promotes freedom of expression in the United Kingdom. The group is based in Fareham, England. It was formerly named the Defence of Literatu ...

. By the late 1990s, NCROPA was effectively moribund, and in December 2014, NCROPA was formally merged with the CAC.

Personal life

David Webb was unmarried. He was a

secular humanist Secular humanism is a philosophy, belief system or life stance that embraces human reason, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism while specifically rejecting religious dogma, supernaturalism, and superstition as the basis of morality ...

Death

He died at

Trinity Hospice Royal Trinity Hospice is the oldest hospice in the United Kingdom, founded in 1891 by a member of the Hoare banking family. It is located in Clapham Common, London, England, and provides specialist palliative care. In 2019 Royal Trinity Hos ...

Clapham Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Early history ...

, and was cremated at

Mortlake Crematorium Mortlake Crematorium is a crematorium in Kew, near its boundary with Mortlake, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It opened in 1939, next to Mortlake Cemetery. The crematorium serves the boroughs of Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, ...

on 17 July 2012.

References

External links

*
The David Webb Virtual Archive & Fan SiteThe NCROPA Virtual ArchiveLibertarian Alliance documents
including unpublished material by David Webb
NCROPA archives
at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick {{DEFAULTSORT:Webb, David 1931 births 2012 deaths People from Luton English male stage actors English male television actors English humanists Secular humanists Censorship in the United Kingdom Alumni of RADA English atheists