Leslie George Seymour, JP (1 November 1900 – 15 April 1976) was a British company director and politician from the city of

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

. Educated at Solihull Grammar School, Seymour left school at the age of 14 to work in a laboratory at a technical school. He then went into manufacturing industries, and became Managing Director of Improved Metallic Appliances Ltd. He was also involved in

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

politics and was elected to

Birmingham City Council Birmingham City Council is the local government body responsible for the governance of the City of Birmingham in England, which has been a metropolitan district since 1974. It is the most populated local council area in the United Kingdom (e ...

from

Small Heath Small Heath is an area in south-east Birmingham, West Midlands, England situated on and around the Coventry Road about from the city centre. History Small Heath, which has been settled and used since Roman times, sits on top of a small hill. ...

ward in 1937. After losing his seat in 1946, he returned to the council from Rotton Park Ward in 1947 for two further terms before again being defeated in 1954. He specialised in the more mundane aspects of local government such as rating and valuation, although he was chair of the Civil Defence Committee in 1944. Seymour was Conservative candidate in the safe Labour seat of

Birmingham Ladywood Birmingham Ladywood is a constituency of part of the city of Birmingham, represented in the House of Commons since 2010 by Shabana Mahmood of the Labour Party. Members of Parliament Clare Short, elected as a Labour MP from the 1983 gene ...

at the 1951 general election. At the 1959 general election, he fought Birmingham Sparkbrook: the Labour incumbent

Percy Shurmer Percy Lionel Edward Shurmer (1888 – 29 May 1959) was a British Labour Party politician and postal worker. In the 1945 general election, he won the Birmingham Sparkbrook constituency from the Conservative Member of Parliament, Leo Amery. Shur ...

had died shortly before polling day, and Seymour managed to defeat his underprepared successor as candidate. A low-profile MP, Seymour was an instinctive right-winger and at the 1964 general election he called for legal restrictions on coloured immigration in overcrowded areas such as Sparkbrook. The Labour Party candidate

Roy Hattersley Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley, (born 28 December 1932) is a British Labour Party politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He was MP for Birmingham Sparkbrook for over 32 years from 1964 to 1997, and served as Depu ...

was strongly opposed to racialism and regained the seat. After failing to regain his seat at the 1966 general election, Seymour retired. In 1974 he was made an Honorary

Alderman An alderman is a member of a Municipal government, municipal assembly or council in many Jurisdiction, jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council membe ...

of Birmingham.

References

*M. Stenton and S. Lees, "Who's Who of British MPs" Vol. IV (Harvester Press, 1981) *"Birmingham Votes" by Christopher Phillips *Obituary, ''The Times'', 21 April 1976.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Seymour, Leslie 1900 births 1976 deaths Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1959–1964 Councillors in Birmingham, West Midlands