Robert Malcolm Deryck Davies,
OBE
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations,
and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
(7 May 1918 – 16 June 1967) was a British
Labour Party politician.
He was educated at
Reading School, and
London and
Oxford Universities. From 1949 until his election to Parliament he was Secretary of the Department of Applied Economics at
Cambridge University. He was also a Labour member of
Cambridge City Council for
East Chesterton
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sunrise, Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from ...
ward from 1954 to 1964. In 1941 he married Katharine Wing. The couple had no children.
At the
1966 general election, he was elected
Member of Parliament for
Cambridge, winning the seat by just 991 votes from the
Conservatives at his third attempt, after the retirement of
Hamilton Kerr. He had previously contested the seat in the general elections of
1959
Events January
* January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance.
* January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...
and
1964
Events January
* January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved.
* January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...
, and also contested the surrounding seat of
Cambridgeshire during a
1961 by-election. Regarded as being on the left of the party, he was an opponent of the government's policy on
Vietnam, and joined other Labour members in signing a letter supporting a peace march organised by the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
He was admitted to
Addenbrooke Hospital
Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned large teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campu ...
, Cambridge, in May 1967 for 'a complete rest and observation', but suffered a heart attack and died a month later, only fifteen months after being elected, aged 49. The resulting
by-election for his seat was won by the Conservative candidate,
David Lane.
Descended from a Welsh farming family, his grandfather, Jenkin Davies (1824–1893), was a leading Berkshire agriculturalist and County Councillor. The Davies Family History Websit
has details of his pedigree.
References
*''Times Guide to the House of Commons'', 1966 & October 1974
*
External links
*
1918 births
1967 deaths
Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies
UK MPs 1966–1970
People from Chesterton, Cambridge
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