Sidney Augustus Dye, JP (4 August 1900''Norfolk, England, Church of England Births and Baptisms, 1813–1915'' – 9 December 1958) was a British Labour Party politician. Born at

Wells-next-the-Sea Wells-next-the-Sea is a port town on the north coast of Norfolk, England. The civil parish has an area of and in 2001 had a population of 2,451,Office for National Statistics & Norfolk County Council (2001). Census population and household c ...

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

, Sidney Dye was educated at Wells Elementary School but left at the age of thirteen to become an agricultural labourer. He joined the National Union of Agricultural Workers when he was sixteen, soon becoming the branch secretary, and he also became secretary of his local Labour Party. He received a scholarship to

Ruskin College, Oxford 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 obtained a diploma in economics and political science, and he then attended the International People's College in Denmark. In 1924, Dye began working as a full-time Labour Party agent in Dover, then from 1926 until 1931 he was the agent for the

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

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 ...

. He became a tenant farmer in

Swaffham Swaffham () is a market town and civil parish in the Breckland District and English county of Norfolk. It is situated east of King's Lynn and west of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of and in the 2001 census had a population of 6,9 ...

in 1932 and was elected to

Norfolk County Council Norfolk County Council is the top-tier local government authority for Norfolk, England. Its headquarters are based in the city of Norwich. Below it there are 7 second-tier local government district councils: Breckland District, Broadland Distr ...

in 1934 and Swaffham Rural District Council in 1935. He contested

South West Norfolk South West Norfolk is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Liz Truss, a Conservative, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom from September to October 2022. Constituency profile This is ...

unsuccessfully in 1935, continuing as a farmer, purchasing his farm during

World War II 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 opposing ...

. In the 1945 election, he won the South West Norfolk seat by only 53 votes. In 1950, his majority increased to 260, but he was defeated in the 1951 election. In the 1955 election, Dye regained the seat with a majority of 193, securing Labour's only gain of that election. Dye was a founder of the Parliamentary Socialist Christian Group. On Sunday, 7 December 1958, Dye joined protesters blockading the airbase at RAF North Pickenham, in his constituency, where Thor intermediate-range nuclear missiles were to be based with 220 Squadron RAF. On Monday, 8 December, he traveled to 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 ...

to table a question regarding the protests. On the morning of Tuesday, 9 December 1958, Sidney Dye was killed in a head-on collision with another vehicle near his home in

. On 18 December, an inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death, after hearing that the brakes on the MP's car, which was less than three years old, were "completely ineffective".

References

* * * * 1900 births 1958 deaths Alumni of Ruskin College Labour Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies UK MPs 1945–1950 UK MPs 1950–1951 UK MPs 1955–1959 Members of Norfolk County Council Road incident deaths in England People from Swaffham People from Wells-next-the-Sea {{England-Labour-UK-MP-stub