Ernest Alfred Cecil Roberts (20 April 1912 – 28 August 1994) was a Labour Party

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

. He worked for the

Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers The Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU) was a major British trade union. It merged with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union to form the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union in 1992. History The history of t ...

, was a co-founder of the

Anti-Nazi League The Anti-Nazi League (ANL) was an organisation set up in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party with sponsorship from some trade unions and the endorsement of a list of prominent people to oppose the rise of far-right groups i ...

in 1977 and was the MP for

Hackney North and Stoke Newington Hackney North and Stoke Newington is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom since 1987 by Diane Abbott of the Labour Party, who served as Shadow Home Secretary from 6 October 2016 to 5 April 2020. Abbott was o ...

from 1979 to 1987.

Early life

Roberts left primary school in

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

at the age of thirteen, having declined a scholarship to the Shrewsbury School of Art, to work in a coal mine to help support ultimately ten siblings. He worked as an engineering worker for many years, much blacklisted and dismissed for trade union activities, until he became Assistant General Secretary of the

in 1957. Ideologically, he was on the left-wing of the Labour Party.

Political career

After unsuccessfully contesting Stockport South in

1955 United Kingdom general election The 1955 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 26 May 1955, four years after the previous general election in 1951. It was a snap election: after Winston Churchill retired in April 1955, Anthony Eden took over and immediately ca ...

, Roberts was elected as the

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 the

Inner London Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was use ...

constituency An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger State (polity), state (a country, administrative region, ...

aged 67, according to his obituary writer

Frank Allaun Frank Julian Allaun (27 February 1913 – 26 November 2002) was a British Labour politician. Born in Manchester, Allaun was educated at Manchester Grammar School and worked as an engineer, shop assistant, tour leader, chartered accountant and ...

the oldest new MP since 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 opposin ...

, (although

John McQuade John McQuade (9 August 1911 – 19 November 1984) was a Northern Ireland politician. He was a professional boxer under the name of Jack Higgins. After serving with the British Army in Dunkirk and Burma, he was an Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) ...

who also took his only Westminster seat at the same election was eight months older than Roberts). He served from the 1979 general election until the 1987 general election, when he was deselected in favour of

Diane Abbott Diane Julie Abbott (born 27 September 1953) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney North and Stoke Newington since 1987. A member of the Labour Party, she served in the Shadow Cabinet of Jeremy Corbyn as Sh ...

who would go on to become the first-ever

Black British Black British people are a multi-ethnic group of British citizens of either African or Afro-Caribbean descent.Gadsby, Meredith (2006), ''Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival'', University of Missouri Press, pp. 76–7 ...

female MP.

Family

He married Joyce Longley in 1953, and had a son and two daughters.Who's Who 1987

Books

* ''Workers' Control'' (Allen & Unwin 1973) * ''労働者支配制'' (Workers' Control Japanese edition) (1975) * ''Unemployment – The Facts'' (Part-author) (Spokesman Books) * ''Humanising the Work-place'' (Part-author) (Crook & Helm) * ''The solution is Workers Control'' (pamphlet) (Spokesman Books) * ''Democracy in the Engineering Union'' (Part-author) (IWC) * ''Strike Back'' (Autobiography, with forewords by

Tony Benn Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn (3 April 1925 – 14 March 2014), known between 1960 and 1963 as Viscount Stansgate, was a British politician, writer and diarist who served as a Cabinet of the United Kingdom, Cabinet minister in the 1960s and 1970s. ...

and

Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the UK miners' strike (1984–85), a major event in the history of ...

) (posthumously published 1994)

References

External links

* 1912 births 1994 deaths Amalgamated Engineering Union-sponsored MPs Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 Hackney Members of Parliament English trade unionists Politicians from Shrewsbury {{UK-trade-unionist-bio-stub