Arthur Bottomley

The Right Honourable The Lord Bottomley OBE PC
Bottomley in 1946
Minister of Overseas Development
In office 11 August 1966 – 29 August 1967
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Anthony Greenwood
Succeeded by	Reg Prentice
Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations
In office 16 October 1964 – 1 August 1966
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Duncan Sandys
Succeeded by	Herbert Bowden
Secretary for Overseas Trade
In office 7 October 1947 – 26 October 1951
Prime Minister	Clement Attlee
Preceded by	Harold Wilson
Succeeded by	Henry Hopkinson
Parliamentary offices Member of Parliament for Middlesbrough Middlesbrough East (1962–1974) In office 15 March 1962 – 13 May 1983 Preceded by Hilary Marquand Succeeded by Stuart Bell Member of Parliament for Rochester and Chatham Chatham (1945–1950) In office 5 July 1945 – 18 September 1959 Preceded by Leonard Plugge Succeeded by Julian Critchley
Personal details
Born	Arthur George Bottomley 7 February 1907 London
Died	3 November 1995 (aged 88) London
Political party	Labour
Spouse	Bessie Wiles (m. 1936)

Arthur George Bottomley, Baron Bottomley, OBE, PC (7 February 1907 – 3 November 1995) was a British Labour politician, Member of Parliament and minister.

Early life

Before entering parliament he was a trade union organiser of the National Union of Public Employees (which later became part of UNISON). From 1929 to 1949 he was a councillor on Walthamstow Borough Council, and in 1945–1946 he was Mayor of Walthamstow. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1941 Birthday Honours.

Parliamentary career

He was first elected to parliament in the 1945 general election for the Chatham division of Rochester and he held the seat (later renamed Rochester and Chatham) until losing it in the 1959 general election to the Conservative Julian Critchley. He returned to parliament by winning Middlesbrough East in a 1962 by-election and held the seat, and its successor Middlesbrough, until his retirement in 1983.

He was a junior minister in Clement Attlee's governments, being Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1946–47), Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1947) and Secretary for Overseas Trade at the Board of Trade (1947–51). In Harold Wilson's governments he was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (1964–66) — during which time he sought to deal with the consequences of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence — and Minister of Overseas Development (1966–67).

Announced in the 1984 New Year Honours, he was created a life peer as Baron Bottomley of Middlesbrough in the County of Cleveland, on 31 January 1984.

Lord Bottomley died on 3 November 1995 aged 88.

Family

His wife, Bessie Ellen Bottomley (née Wiles), JP, whom he married in 1936, was named a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1970 "[f]or public and social services."

Bessie Ellen Bottomley died in 1998 in Redbridge, Essex.

Publications

• The Use and Abuse of Trade Unions, London: Ampersand, 1963.
• With George Sinclair, Control of Commonwealth Immigration. An Analysis and Summary of the Evidence taken by the Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration 1969–70. London: Runnymede Trust, 1970 (ISBN 9780902397033).
• Commonwealth, Comrades, and Friends, Somaiya Publications, 1986.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Arthur Bottomley
• Catalogue of the Bottomley papers at the Archives Division of the London School of Economics.
• Parliamentary Archives, Papers of Arthur Bottomley