Thomas Hilton Dawson (born 30 September 1953) is a British politician who was the Labour Party

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 Lancaster and Wyre from

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

until 2005. Dawson became the chairman of the

North East Party The North East Party (NEP) is a regionalist political party in North East England founded in 2014 by 16 people including the former Labour MP Hilton Dawson and 7 members of the FAIR party. The party campaigns for a better deal for North East En ...

in 2014, and was the party's candidate in the

2021 Hartlepool by-election A by-election for the House of Commons constituency of Hartlepool in the former county of Cleveland, England, was held on 6 May 2021. The by-election was triggered following the resignation of Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Mike Hill, who r ...

Early life

Dawson was born on 30 September 1953 in

Northumberland Northumberland () is a county in Northern England, one of two counties in England which border with Scotland. Notable landmarks in the county include Alnwick Castle, Bamburgh Castle, Hadrian's Wall and Hexham Abbey. It is bordered by land ...

, England. He is the son of Harry Dawson and his wife Sally, both teachers. He attended Ashington County Grammar School (now known as

Ashington Academy Ashington Academy is a secondary school and sixth form located in Ashington in the English county of Northumberland. History It was established in 1960 as Ashington County Grammar School. It became a comprehensive school in the mid 1970s and w ...

) on Green Lane in Ashington. At the

University of Warwick , mottoeng = Mind moves matter , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.0 million (2021) , budget = £698.2 million (2020� ...

, he gained a BA in Politics and Philosophy in 1975. From Lancaster University, he gained a Diploma in Social Work. He worked as a social work manager from 1983 to 1997, involving children's homes,

fostering Fosterage, the practice of a family bringing up a child not their own, differs from adoption in that the child's parents, not the foster-parents, remain the acknowledged parents. In many modern western societies foster care can be organised by th ...

and adoption, and

day care Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(r ...

Parliamentary career

Dawson was elected as the Labour MP for the newly-created Lancaster and Wyre constituency at the 1997 general election, which saw his party return to power after 18 years in opposition. He was re-elected for the

marginal seat A marginal seat or swing seat is a constituency held with a small majority in a legislative election, generally one conducted under a single-winner voting system. In Canada, they may be known as target ridings. The opposite is a safe seat. The ...

at the 2001 general election. In 2004, Dawson announced he would not be seeking re-election at the next general election, seeking to return to work in children's services. The local

Constituency Labour Party __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituenc ...

selected Anne Sacks as its new candidate, but the seat was won by the Conservative Party candidate, Ben Wallace, with a 4.5% swing away from Labour.

After Parliament

Dawson became CEO of Shaftesbury Young People. In April 2009, he was appointed chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers. Hilton left BASW in January 2013 by mutual agreement, and now runs his own company called Northumbria People. In March 2013 he published ''Frank Renner's Bairns – Looking at the world through the lives of a Northumbrian Family''. He is chair of the Newbiggin by the Sea Genealogy Project. In 2014, Dawson left the Labour Party and became the chairman of the

. In March 2021, Dawson was selected as the party's candidate for the

. He received 163 votes, placing tenth of sixteen candidates.

Personal life

Dawson married Susan Williams on 11 August 1973. They have two daughters and four grandchildren. He is a supporter of Sunderland.Thorpe, Martin, 'It's The Pits: Football Diary',

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

, 22 November 1997, pA12

References

External links

Hilton Dawson
They Work For You {{DEFAULTSORT:Dawson, Hilton 1953 births Living people Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1997–2001 UK MPs 2001–2005 People from Ashington Alumni of Lancaster University Alumni of Pendle College, Lancaster Alumni of the University of Warwick Liberal Democrats (UK) politicians People from Newbiggin-by-the-Sea People from Stannington, Northumberland British political party founders