George Barrington Porter (11 June 1939 – 3 November 1996) was a British lawyer and

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 ...

politician.

Early life

Educated at

Birkenhead School Birkenhead School is an independent, academically-selective, co-educational day school located in Oxton, Wirral, in North West England. The school offers educational opportunities for girls and boys from three months to eighteen years of ag ...

and the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, he trained as a solicitor and was a partner and later a consultant at Fanshaw Porter & Hazlehurst Solicitors in

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liver ...

Parliamentary career

Porter contested a number of seats before he found success. He fought a by-election for Liverpool Scotland in 1971, Newton in the February 1974 general election, and Chorley in October 1974. He was first elected at the 1979 general election as

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 ...

(MP) for Bebington and Ellesmere Port. After boundary changes for the 1983 election, he was returned for the new constituency of

Wirral South Wirral South is a constituency in Merseyside, England represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Alison McGovern of the Labour Party since 2010. Constituency profile Wirral South covers the central part of the Wirral peninsu ...

. His death in 1996 aged 57, after suffering from

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Possible signs and symptoms include a lump, abnormal b ...

, eliminated the majority of one enjoyed by the government of John Major 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 ...

, and the consequent February 1997 by-election was won by

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 ...

's Ben Chapman.

Legacy

A caricature of Porter hangs in the lounge bar of the Cask and Glass Public House in Victoria, London.

References

External links

* 1939 births 1996 deaths People educated at Birkenhead School Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 UK MPs 1987–1992 UK MPs 1992–1997 Politics of the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral Deaths from cancer Alumni of University College, Oxford {{England-Conservative-UK-MP-1930s-stub