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G Blake Windsor
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Sir
Cyril Smith MP MBE
Mayor of Rochdale

(1928-2010)
Cyril Smith was born in Rochdale on 28th June 1928. He first
came to the public's notice as the newly elected Member of Parliament
for Rochdale in the 1972 General Election, though he had already
been a major player in Rochdale politics for many years. He
had been just 22 years of age when he was first elected to the
Rochdale Council. A lifelong member of the Liberal Party, in
1966 he was appointed Mayor of Rochdale and was awarded the
MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. In 1988 he was knighted
Sir Cyril Smith and was appointed as Deputy Lieutenant of Greater
Manchester in 1991. By now his political career was drawing
to an end and in that same year he announced his retirement
as MP for Rochdale.
Sir Cyril always was a larger than life character, both in terms
of his ebullient outspoken personality and his enormous size
- he was at one time reputed to weigh over 20 stone - he was
affectionately known around the town as "Big Cyril", (though
he later went on to shed much of that mighty frame). Cyril remained
very much a "Rochdale lad", devoid of airs and graces,
and even during his time as mayor of Rochdale his mother continued
to work as a cleaner in the town hall.
Upon retirement he was offered a peerage, but declined a seat
in the House of Lords, regarding the honour of a knighthood
as sufficient recognition of his services to politics and his
local community. As a lifelong bachelor, he shared his home
with his mother Eva until her death in 1994. Respected for his
tireless work in the constituency and for his support of the
underdog - very much a peoples' champion. Sir Cyril latterly
enjoyed an active life on the lecture and public speaking circuits,
which included the QE2. Sir Cyril died in his home town of Rochdale
on Friday 3 September 2010 at the age of 82 years.

(1784-1849)
Born in Todmorden on the Lancashire border with Yorkshire
into a family of Quakers, John Fielden was a leading light in
the reform of conditions of child labour in the mid-19th century.
As a child he had worked a 10 hour day in one of his own father's
cotton mills, and served his apprenticeship as a young man before
taking over the business. With the help of his brothers, he
turned it into one of the biggest textile companies in Britain.
From the outset, it was clear that Fielden had a great social
conscience, and he insisted on experiencing shopfloor working
conditions for himself, was an advocate of workers' unions and
set a decent minimum wage for his workers (for that time). He
founded the Todmorden Unitarian Society, which was devoted to
social reforms - he also financed the building of the Unitarian
Chapel, the building of the Unitarian School and the setup of
the Society for the Protection of Children Employed in Cotton
Factories. In 1831 he became Member of Parliament for Oldham
and was proactive in the promotion of children's working rights
and in the Reform Movement. He campaigned for shorter working
days for children, and succeeded in getting it limited to 10
hours a day by the passing of the Ten Hours Act passed by Parliament
in 1847. He died within 2 years and is buried in Todmorden cemetery.

(Born
1931)
Now a Labour Party backbench Member of Parliament, renowned
for his outspoken and frequently passionate manner, Gerald Kaufman
is a well known MP for the Gorton Constituency in east Manchester.
He was for a time the chairman of the culture media and sports
select committee, a post he has occupied since 1997, but would
have been foreign secretary to a Labour Government under Neil
Kinnock's premiership, but it was not to be, and when Kinnock's
fortunes waned so did those of Kaufman. He had been shadow foreign
secretary between 1987-1992. Before becoming an MP in 1983,
he worked as a journalist on left-wing papers, as well as a
comedy scriptwriter. He has also written several books. Kaufman
was a regular topic of media interest, a notoriously snappy
dresser, renowned for his shirts and ties. He
has, in his time, held many lofty and high profile posts in
government and opposition including the following:
1974-75:
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment
1975:
Parliamentary Under-secretary, Department of Industry
1975-79: Minister of State, Department of Industry
1980-83: Shadow Environment Secretary
1983-87: Shadow Home Secretary 1987-92 Shadow Foreign Secretary
He
was awarded a knighthood for services to Parliament in the 2004
Queen's Birthday Honours list.
An ever outspoken, fearless and influential backbencher, he
was the leader of a large European parliamentary delegation
to Gaza in January 2009 during which he criticised Israeli authorities
and called the Israeli blockade of Gaza "evil".
Sir
Oswald Mosley
Leader
of the British Fascist Party

(1896-1980)
Oswald
Mosley, founder and leader of the British Fascist Party in the
1930s, was born on November 16th 1896 and was educated at Winchester
College. His family was an old established Manchester family,
and Mosley himself was the Sixth Baronet. Mosley Street in Manchester
bears his family name. The young Oswald entered the Royal Military
College at Sandhurst and in 1914 joined the 16th (the Queens)
Lancers before going on to the Royal Flying Corps as an Observer.
He was later discharged due to leg injuries sustained in a plane
crash and by the end of the War was working in the Foreign Office.
He became a Conservative MP for the Harrow' constituency in
1918, the youngest MP in the House of Commons. In 1924 disenchanted
with government policies, he joined the Labour and was made
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1928. His political
career seemed guaranteed, and had it not been for his extreme
right wing political ideologies, he would no doubt have risen
to higher and more distinguished office. In this time of depression
and widespread unemployment, he became gradually interested
in the economic policies of the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini,
and in 1932 published his first book, "The Greater Britain",
in which he set out his grand plan for the economic, social
and political reconstruction of Britain. He actually paid visits
to both Mussolini and the German dictator, Adolph Hitler. Hitler
in fact was Mosley's best man at his second marriage in Goebbel's
house in Berlin.
On Saturday October 1st 1932 he founded the British Union of
Fascists to implement his policies. His early meetings were
held at Hyndman Hall in Liverpool Street, Salford. During the
1930s his policies were increasingly controversial - his outspoken
oratory and his militaristic street parades and rallies of black-shirted
neo-Nazis, reminiscent of those taking place in Nuremberg in
Germany, were frequently accompanied by unrest and violence.
Several rallies were held at Queen's Park in Harpurhey. In 1933
one of his meeting at the Free Trade Hall was the scene of rioting,
and police had to be called to separate various factions. Apart
from a faithful minority following he failed to grab the imagination
or sympathies of the people.
In 1938 he published "Tomorrow We Live" as well as a
large number of leaflets, booklets and two regular weekly newspapers
"The Blackshirt" and "Action". His views were
vehemently pro-British, intensely xenophobic and overt in their
racism.
The Second World War and the ensuing collapse of fascism in
Europe effectively brought an end to Mosley's career as a politician,
and an effective end to the party's popularity in the western
world. He died at home in bed in 1980 aged 84.

(Born
1946)
Born John Whittaker Straw on 3rd August 1946 and educated at
Brentwood School in Essex. Later, at Leeds University, he was
President of the University Students' Union from 1967-1968 and
of the National Union of Students from 1969-1971. A leading
player in UK politics, from 1971 to 1974 he was a member of
the Inner London Education Authority as well as being Deputy
Leader of the Labour Party from 1973 to 1974. He had been called
to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1972, and worked as a barrister
from 1972-1974; he was special adviser to Barbara Castle from
1974-1975 and to Peter Shore from 1976-1977. He also worked
for Granada Television's "World in Action" programme
from 1977-1979. He is Member of Parliament for Blackburn.
Jack Straw was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs on the 8th June 2001, having been the Member
of Parliament for Blackburn since 1979. He had already been
Home Secretary in Tony Blair's new Labour Government from 1997-2001,
having previously been Shadow Home Secretary while in opposition
from 1995 to 1997. He had by then already held a variety of
high offices in opposition and was a leading member of the Blair's
"New Labour" Party, including Shadow Environment Secretary from
1992-1994, Shadow Education Secretary between 1987 and 1992,
Opposition Spokesman on Local Government from 1983-1987, and
from 1980-1983 on Treasury matters. He was a member of the Labour
Party National Executive Committee from 1994-1995.
He is a visiting Fellow of Nuffield College Oxford and a Fellow
of the Royal Statistical Society. He is married with a son and
a daughter. He is an active supporter of Blackburn Rovers Football
Club. Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown's premiership in 2007,
Jack Straw became Minister for Justice.
He is one of only three people to have served in Cabinet continuously
from 1997 to 2010, others being Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling.
When the Labour Party lost power in May 2010, he briefly became
the Shadow Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, Shadow Secretary
of State for Justice and the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister, but
stood down from the frontbench after the Labour Party elected
a new Shadow Cabinet and moved to the backbenches, citing the
need for a fresh start for the Labour Party under
a new leader.
In December 2010, ahead of the UK Alternative Vote Referendum
2011, Straw was a signatory to a letter to the Guardian
newspaper arguing in favour of the alternative vote. In April
2011 he took up an appointment as a consultant to ED&F Man
Holdings Limited, a London-based company specialising in the
production and trading of commodities including sugar, molasses,
animal feed, tropical oils, biofuels, coffee and financial services.
Barbara
Castle MP
Baroness
Castle of Blackburn

(1911-2001)
Born Barbara Anne Betts in Bradford, Yorkshire on 6th October
1910, Barbara Castle was described by ex-Labour Party Leader
Michael Foot as 'the best Socialist minister we've ever had'
and was probably best known as the outspoken campaigning Member
of Parliament for Blackburn in Lancashire for 35 years. As a
young woman she is reputed to have lived for a time in Hyde,
(then in Cheshire, now part of Tameside in Greater Manchester).
Her mother had been a local Labour Councillor and her father
was a tax inspector and political activist. A bright girl, she
attended Bradford Girls' Grammar School, and later took a degree
at Oxford. Later, she determined to be a journalist and a politician,
but the Depression forced her temporarily to seek work selling
fruit in a Manchester store. At Oxford she had also met Michael
Foot with whom she spent many hours discussing social politics
at his flat in Bloomsbury - they denied allegations and rumours
of an affair.
However, in 1937, they helped launch the "Tribune", which
set out to reform the Labour Party as a truly socialist party
and in 1944 she won election to the Blackburn constituency which
she represented until her retirement in 1979. A clever and single-minded
author of some of the best political diaries of her time, she
had begun her campaigning against Fascism in pre-World War Two
days and rose to be a minister in Harold Wilson's government
in the 1960s and 70s. Wilson appointed her to his first cabinet
at the Department of Overseas Development, in which she was
to become possibly the most effective Cabinet Minister of her
generation, despite having no previous ministerial experience.
Wilson promoted her to the Department of Transport and in two
and a half years she transformed the department and oversaw
the introduction of the breathalyser and the seatbelt.
Later he promoted her again to First Secretary in the new Department
of Employment and Productivity in an attempt to bring order
to the poor state of industrial relations. "In Place of Strife"
was the white paper which she produced in an attempt to bridge
the chasm which existed between employers and workers, but this
proved disastrous and was roundly rejected. Despite its many
worthy proposals she was forced to accept a shortened bill which
was only to enforce the more penal clauses and industrial discord
was even more deepened. The episode also accelerated alienation
between party activists and the leadership, and although well
liked and respected by parliamentary backbenchers, she was nevertheless
a controversial figure and was fired by Labour Prime Minister,
James Callaghan.
Ultimately she left many worthy monuments to her governmental
efforts, not least of which was Equal Pay for Women. After retirement
from Westminster in 1979, she became the leader of the Labour
group in the European parliament for ten years. Later, party
leader Neil Kinnock recommended her to the House of Lords and
she was created a Baroness. She and her husband Ted, (who had
died in 1979), had no children. Barbara Castle, by then Baroness
Castle of Blackburn, died on the 3rd of May 2001.
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