Joseph Westwood (11 February 1884 – 17 July 1948) was a Scottish Labour Party politician. Educated at Buckhaven Higher Grade School, he worked as a draper's apprentice, messenger boy and miner. Westwood was an Industrial Organiser for

Fife Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...

miners from 1916–18 and a political organiser for Scottish Miners from 1918 to 1929.

Biography

Westwood 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 Peebles and Southern Midlothian at the 1922 general election, and represented the constituency until he lost the seat in

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

. He was a candidate for East Fife at a by-election in February 1933 and was elected at Stirling and Falkirk in 1935, for which he represented until his death thirteen years later. Westwood was

Parliamentary Private Secretary A Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) is a Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom who acts as an unpaid assistant to a minister or shadow minister. They are selected from backbench MPs as the 'eyes and ears' of the minister in the H ...

William Adamson William Adamson (2 April 1863 – 23 February 1936) was a Scottish trade unionist and Labour politician. He was Leader of the Labour Party from 1917 to 1921 and served as Secretary of State for Scotland in 1924 and during 1929–1931 in the ...

as Secretary of State for Scotland from June 1929, and served as Parliamentary

Under-Secretary of State for Scotland The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is a junior ministerial post (of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State rank) in the Government of the United Kingdom, supporting the Secretary of State for Scotland. The post is also kno ...

from March to August 1931 and again from May 1940 until May 1945. He served as

Secretary of State for Scotland The secretary of state for Scotland ( gd, Rùnaire Stàite na h-Alba; sco, Secretar o State fir Scotland), also referred to as the Scottish secretary, is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the Unit ...

from July 1945 until October 1947. He was appointed a

Privy Counsellor The Privy Council (PC), officially His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a privy council, formal body of advisers to the British monarchy, sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises Politics of the United King ...

in 1943. His tenure as

has been considered as lacklustre. In the view of

George Pottinger (William) George Pottinger (11 June 1916 – 15 January 1998)Attlee ministry of which he was a Cabinet member was highly centralised in pursuing its objectives, and appeals that were specifically Scottish (or Welsh, or of a particular English region) were distrusted and generally disregarded by the Government. Consequently, Westwood struggled to secure Cabinet backing for specifically Scottish measures in a way that his recent predecessors, most notably Tom Johnston, did not.Pottinger, p. 102. Westwood died in a car accident in 1948, and is buried in Dysart Cemetery, by

Kirkcaldy Kirkcaldy ( ; sco, Kirkcaldy; gd, Cair Chaladain) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, ...

in Fife, together with his wife.

References

*Pottinger, George, ''The Secretaries of State for Scotland, 1926-1976'' (Scottish Academic Press, 1979), *Torrance, David, ''The Scottish Secretaries'' (Birlinn 2006) * *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Westwood, Joseph 1884 births 1948 deaths British Secretaries of State Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Stirling constituencies Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Ministers in the Churchill wartime government, 1940–1945 People from Buckhaven Road incident deaths in the United Kingdom Scottish Labour MPs Scottish miners Scottish trade unionists Secretaries of State for Scotland UK MPs 1922–1923 UK MPs 1923–1924 UK MPs 1924–1929 UK MPs 1929–1931 UK MPs 1935–1945 UK MPs 1945–1950 Ministers in the Attlee governments, 1945–1951