Merlyn Rees

The Right Honourable Merlyn Rees Baron Merlyn-Rees PC
Home Secretary
In office 10 September 1976 – 4 May 1979
Prime Minister	James Callaghan
Preceded by	Roy Jenkins
Succeeded by	William Whitelaw
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
In office 5 March 1974 – 10 September 1976
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Francis Pym
Succeeded by	Roy Mason
Personal details
Born	18 December 1920 Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, UK
Died	January 5, 2006(2006-01-05) (aged 85) Leeds, UK
Political party	Labour

Merlyn Rees, later Merlyn Merlyn-Rees, Baron Merlyn-Rees, PC (18 December 1920 – 5 January 2006) was a British Labour party Member of Parliament from 1963 until 1992, having served as Home Secretary.

Early life

Born in Cilfynydd, near Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales, and educated at Harrow Weald Grammar School, Harrow, England and Goldsmiths College, London where he was president of the Students' union from 1939 to 1941. He served in the RAF the University of Nottingham Air Squadron during World War II, becoming a squadron leader at 25. He attended the London School of Economics where he received BSc(Econ) and MSc(Econ) and. He was appointed schoolmaster at his old school in Harrow in 1949, teaching economics and history. He taught for eleven years, during which time he was three times an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate for Harrow East. He was a member of the Institute of Education at the University of London from 1959 to 1962.

Member of Parliament

At a by-election in 1963, he stood successfully as the Labour candidate for Leeds South, succeeding Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell, who had died in office. He held the seat until he stepped down from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election. The constituency was renamed as Morley and Leeds South in 1983. He was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from March 1974 until September 1976, when he was appointed Home Secretary. For two years before the Labour government came to power in 1974 he had been Labour Party spokesman on Northern Ireland. Rees wrote of his views on Northern Ireland in: Northern Ireland: a Personal Perspective (Methuen, London, 1985 ISBN 0-413-52590-2).

Retirement

When he retired from the House of Commons in 1992, he was created a life peer as Baron Merlyn-Rees, of Morley and South Leeds in the County of West Yorkshire and of Cilfynydd in the County of Mid Glamorgan and entered the House of Lords (having changed his name by deed poll to Merlyn Merlyn-Rees to allow his title to be Merlyn-Rees rather than Rees) (see [1]).

He was president of the Video Standards Council from 1990 and the first Chancellor of the University of Glamorgan from 1994 to 2002.

Death

He suffered injuries in a number of falls, and failing to recover from these, fell into a coma, dying at the age of 85. He was survived by his wife Colleen and three sons.

References

• BBC News (5 January 2006). “Peer's roots in 'gifted' street”. Retrieved 15 January 2006.
• ”Belfast years remembered for vacillation in face of loyalist strike.” (5 January 2006). The Irish Times p14.
• Wakefieldtoday.co.uk.”Your Online Guide to Yorkshire People”. Retrieved 15 January 2006

External links

• Merlyn Rees (The Second World War Experience Centre)
• Catalogue of the Merlyn-Rees papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.