Sydney Silverman

(Samuel) Sydney Silverman (8 October 1895 - 9 February 1968) was a British Labour politician and opponent of capital punishment.

Born in Liverpool to a poor draper's family, Silverman was able to attend Liverpool Institute and Liverpool University thanks to scholarships and became a lecturer at the National University of Finland and later a solicitor. He worked on workmen's compensation claims and landlord-tenant disputes. During World War I, Silverman served various prison sentences as a pacifist and conscientious objector to military service. He served on Liverpool City Council 1932-1938.

Silverman contested Liverpool Exchange without success at a 1933 by-election, and was elected Member of Parliament in the 1935 general election for Nelson and Colne.

Silverman was prominent in his support for Jews worldwide and for their rights in Palestine. His pacifism was rethought in light of the reports of anti-semitism in Europe and he supported Britain's entry into World War II. He was expected to join the government after the 1945 election but, as a left-winger, was not appointed by Clement Attlee. He became opposed to the government's foreign policy. In 1954, he was expelled from the Labour Party for a period with Michael Foot and others of nuclear disarmament policy. He was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

As a fervent supporter of the abolition of the death penalty, he founded the National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment and proposed a Private Member's Bill on abolition, which was passed on a free vote in the House of Commons by 200 votes to 98 on 28 June 1956, but was defeated in the House of Lords. Capital punishment for murder was eventually abolished in the UK in 1965.

According to Labour MP John Parker, Silverman first grew his beard at a time that no other MP had one. Clement Attlee, on seeing the newly-bearded MP, said "I move the previous face".

Silverman's 1968 death caused a by-election, won by Conservative David Waddington.

Life chronology

1895 Born in Liverpool, eldest son of a poor Jewish refugee from Rumania, a pedlar or "Scotch draper".

1908 Won scholarship to the Liverpool Institute.

1913 Began course in English Literature at Liverpool University.

1914 Already a committed Socialist on outbreak of world war.

1916 Conscripted into army. Applying for exemption on socialist grounds, he was denied recognition as a conscientious objector. Arrested for refusing to obey military orders, sentenced to two years' hard labour. Went on hunger strike, lived for a year on a daily pint of milk. Sentence commuted. On release, found a military escort waiting to conscript him at the prison gates. Once again defied orders, was court-martialled and jailed again. Spent a total of 2 years 3 months in jail.

1920-1 Readmitted to Liverpool University to complete his BA course; gained degree in 1921.

1921-5 Unable to find a job in Britain, worked at Helsinki University as lecturer in English.

1925 Returned to Liverpool University to study law, a subject in which he had become interested while campaigning on behalf of his fellow prisoners in jail.

1927 Gained law degree with First Class honours.

1928 Opened solicitor's office without capital or connections. Defended poor and working-class clients, often unpaid, living on costs awarded when he won his cases. Local police chiefs called him "our greatest enemy".

1932 Elected Labour Councillor and "workers' class representative" in St Annes Ward, Liverpool.

1933 Married Nancy Rubinstein, a musician, whose refugee father had been killed in a local racist attack. Fought a by-election for Labour in Liverpool. Narrowly lost after a Tory campaign of anti-Semitic bigotry. A delegation from Nelson & Colne Labour Party (a nearby militant Labour constituency party), visiting Liverpool in search of a suitable fighting Socialist candidate, and having already heard Silverman's name, found him during the bye-election helping the family of an unemployed docker resist eviction.They decided to approach him to fight the next election as their candidate in Nelson & Colne.

1935 First elected MP for the constituency, which he represented for the following 33 years until his death, winning altogether eight successive elections.

1935-9 Fought against National Government; appeasement of Hitler; the Hitler-Stalin pact. Condemned Moscow trials and defended Trotsky in public debates with DN Pritt.

1940 Elected Chairman, British Section of World Jewish Congress, the body's wartime European headquarters.

1942 In this capacity was among the first to warn the world of Hitler's "Final Solution of the Jewish question", and mount worldwide campaign to save European Jewry from genocide.

1944 Successfully defended trade-unionists prosecuted for violating wartime anti-strike laws.

1945 Visited recently liberated Buchenwald and Belsen Nazi concentration camps as member of parliamentary delegations.

1946 Campaigned against Labour Government's military attacks on Jewish migrants to Palestine, largely concentration-camp refugees.

1948 Launched first campaign to abolish capital punishment.

1951 Opposed Labour Government's rearmament programme.

1955-7 Fought renewed campagn against capital punishment.

1958 Co-founder of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

1960 As Chairman of Victory for Socialism, attacked Gaitskell's leadership of the Labour Party.

1961 Following LP Conference vote for nuclear disarmament, voted in Parliament against defence estimates, along with four other Labour MPs. Expelled from Parliamentary Labour Party.

1965 Successfully carried bill through Parliament to abolish capital punishment for murder.

1966 Won election with increased majority, despite intervention of a pro-hanging candidate in the aftermath of the local Moors murders.

1967 Wrote open letter condemning Harold Wilson's attack on the right of Labour MPs to criticise the Labour Government, and accusing him of betraying socialist principles. When the Chief Whip tried to pacify him with compliments describing his campaign against capital punishment as his "great memorial", he replied: "The only memorial I would value is that I have given a lifetime of service in the Labour Party's continuing effort to establish a socialist society under a Labour Government in this country."

1968 Died.

References

• Iain Dale, ed. (2003). The Times House of Commons 1929, 1931, 1935. Politico's (reprint). ISBN 1-84275-033-X.
• The Times House of Commons 1945. 1945.
• The Times House of Commons 1950. 1950.
• The Times House of Commons 1955. 1955.