Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, (6 December 1922 – 20 April 2012) was a British politician. He was a

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 o ...

in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

for Stoke-on-Trent South for 26 years, from 1966 to 1992, and subsequently sat in the

House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...

. He was a long-time campaigner for disabled people.

Early life and education

Ashley was born in

Widnes Widnes ( ) is an industrial town in the Borough of Halton, Cheshire, England, which at the 2011 census had a population of 61,464. Historically in Lancashire, it is on the northern bank of the River Mersey where the estuary narrows to form th ...

and educated at Warrington Road School. He left school at 14 to work in the chemical process industry. He became a crane driver and was a

shop steward A union representative, union steward, or shop steward is an employee of an organization or company who represents and defends the interests of their fellow employees as a labor union member and official. Rank-and-file members of the union hold ...

in the Chemical Workers' Union, a union of which he was the youngest executive member aged 22. He served in the Army in 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 ...

, and then won a scholarship to study at

Ruskin College Ruskin College, originally known as Ruskin Hall, Oxford, is an independent educational institution in Oxford, England. It is not a college of Oxford University. It is named after the essayist, art and social critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) an ...

, where he received a Diploma in Economics and Political Science in 1948. He continued his studies at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, often referred to simply as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and one of t ...

, where he was President of the

Cambridge Union Society The Cambridge Union Society, also known as the Cambridge Union, is a debating and free speech society in Cambridge, England, and the largest society in the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1815, it is the oldest continuously running debati ...

in 1951. He worked as a research worker for the National Union of General and Municipal Workers and then worked as a radio producer for the North American Service and BBC Home Service. In 1956 he joined the BBC television service and worked as a producer on '' Panorama'' and ''

Monitor Monitor or monitor may refer to: Places * Monitor, Alberta * Monitor, Indiana, town in the United States * Monitor, Kentucky * Monitor, Oregon, unincorporated community in the United States * Monitor, Washington * Monitor, Logan County, West ...

''.

Member of Parliament

He served on

Borough Council as a councillor from 1946. At the 1951 general election, Ashley contested Finchley without success. He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Stoke-on-Trent South at the 1966 general election. In December 1967, at the age of 45, as a result of complications of a routine ear operation to correct a mild hearing loss caused by a

perforated eardrum A perforated eardrum (tympanic membrane perforation) is a hole in the eardrum. It can be caused by infection (otitis media), trauma, overpressure (loud noise), inappropriate ear clearing, and changes in middle ear pressure. An otoscope can be us ...

early in his working career, he became

profoundly deaf Hearing loss is a partial or total inability to hear. Hearing loss may be present at birth or acquired at any time afterwards. Hearing loss may occur in one or both ears. In children, hearing problems can affect the ability to acquire spoken l ...

. He described the event as "rather like being struck by lightning". He prepared to resign his seat, but was persuaded instead to take a crash-course in lip-reading. Several weeks later he returned to the House, the United Kingdom's first totally deaf MP and said to be the only totally deaf member of parliament in the world.Obituary at bbc.co.uk
/ref> Later, he used a

palantype A speech-to-text reporter (STTR), also known as a captioner, is a person who listens to what is being said and inputs it, word for word (wikt:verbatim, verbatim), using an electronic shorthand keyboard, speech recognition software, or a CAT (Com ...

transcription system developed by Alan Newell, Andrew Downton and others at the

University of Southampton , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

– this allowed a palantype secretary seated in the public gallery to type what was being said in real time and Ashley could read the transcribed English text from a discreetly-placed monitor at his seat. The first known use of the term " domestic violence" in a modern context, meaning violence in the home, was by Ashley in an address to Parliament in 1973 in which he noted the pioneering work of campaigner

Erin Pizzey Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey (; born 19 February 1939) is an English ex-feminist, Men's rights activist and advocate against domestic violence, and novelist. She is known for having started the first and currently the largest domestic violence sh ...

, founder of the first domestic violence shelter. The term previously referred primarily to

civil unrest Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience (such as a demonstration, riot, strike, or unlawful assembly) in which law enforcement has difficulty ...

, violence from within a country as opposed to violence perpetrated by a foreign power.

Disability campaigner

He became a tireless campaigner for disabled people, especially those who were deaf or blind, and won broad cross-party sympathy, support and respect in parliament for his approach. In 1972, he sponsored the pivotal motion in the House of Commons making a distinction between legal and moral obligation. The success of this enabled ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

'' to continue its moral campaign for improved compensation for children disabled by

thalidomide Thalidomide, sold under the brand names Contergan and Thalomid among others, is a medication used to treat a number of cancers (including multiple myeloma), graft-versus-host disease, and a number of skin conditions including complications o ...

even while the parents' legal case was still technically in the courts. His Labour colleague Alf Morris (later Lord Morris of Manchester) was also a supporter. The editor of ''The Sunday Times'',

Harold Evans Sir Harold Matthew Evans (28 June 192823 September 2020) was a British-American journalist and writer. In his career in his native Britain, he was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1967 to 1981, and its sister title ''The Times'' for a year f ...

, later wrote in ''Good Times, Bad Times'' how Ashley selflessly gave up writing his autobiography so as to concentrate on the

campaign. He also campaigned for compensation for

vaccine A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verified.

damage and for damage caused by the arthritis drug Opren. He became a Companion of Honour in the

1975 New Year Honours The New Year Honours 1975 were appointments in many of the Commonwealth realms of Queen Elizabeth II to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by citizens of those countries. They were announced on 1 January 1975 to celeb ...

, and joined the Privy Council in 1979. He also received a Doctor of Humane Letters from the Gallaudet University, the world's only university for the deaf, in 1975 for his efforts on behalf of deaf and hard-of-hearing persons. Ashley's ability to follow the proceedings of the House of Commons helped inspire the development of live captioning on television to benefit the deaf and hard-of-hearing. He had the ability to read the output from the stenographers who were reporting the debates. When Ashley visited the BBC's

Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BST ( ...

department around 1975, this ability gave one of the staff the idea of commissioning a

Southampton University , mottoeng = The Heights Yield to Endeavour , type = Public research university , established = 1862 – Hartley Institution1902 – Hartley University College1913 – Southampton University Coll ...

doctoral student to develop a computer programme that would convert stenographic output to normal printed text as subtitles to television programmes. Later, Ashley also used the technique to follow parliamentary debates on a small monitor . Ashley received an

Honorary Doctorate An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

from Heriot-Watt University in 1979. In 1986, Ashley and his wife founded the charity Defeating Deafness, now known as Deafness Research UK. He retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election and was created a life peer as Baron Ashley of Stoke, ''of

in the County of Cheshire'' on 10 July 1992. He received a

cochlear implant A cochlear implant (CI) is a surgically implanted neuroprosthesis that provides a person who has moderate-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss with sound perception. With the help of therapy, cochlear implants may allow for improved speech unde ...

in 1993 which restored much of his hearing."First deaf MP Lord Ashley dies"
''Belfast Telegraph'', 21 April 2012 He was the subject of '' This Is Your Life'' in October 1974 when he was surprised by

Eamonn Andrews Eamonn Andrews, (19 December 1922 – 5 November 1987) was an Irish radio and television presenter, employed primarily in the United Kingdom from the 1950s to the 1980s. From 1960 to 1964 he chaired the Radio Éireann Authority (now the RTÉ ...

while playing badminton in the back garden of his home in Epsom.

Personal life

Ashley married Pauline Kay Crispin (1932–2003) in 1951; she died aged 70 in Surrey. They had three daughters, including journalist

Jackie Ashley Jacqueline Ashley (born 10 September 1954) is an English journalist and broadcaster. Early life Ashley was born in St Pancras, London. She is the daughter of Pauline Kay () and Jack Ashley, Baron Ashley of Stoke, a Labour MP and life peer. S ...

. His son-in-law was television presenter

Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist and broadcaster. Beginning his career as a political commentator, he subsequently edited '' The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to 1998 and was political editor of BBC ...

through Marr's marriage to Jackie. Ashley contracted

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

, and died on 20 April 2012, at the age of 89."Obituary: Lord Ashley"
BBC News, 21 April 2012

Notes

References

External links

*
Obituary at bbc.co.ukBiography
from Deafness Research UK *
Short biography
from Gallaudet University {{DEFAULTSORT:Ashley, Jack 1922 births 2012 deaths Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Alumni of Ruskin College BBC television producers British Army personnel of World War II Councillors in Cheshire Deaf politicians Deaf royalty and nobility GMB (trade union)-sponsored MPs Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Ashley of Stoke Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom People from Widnes British politicians with disabilities Presidents of the Cambridge Union UK MPs 1966–1970 UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 Deaths from pneumonia in the United Kingdom Deaf people from England British Army soldiers Military personnel from Lancashire