British politician
Frederick William Mulley, Baron Mulley
,
PC
(3 July 1918 ? 15 March 1995) was a British
Labour Party
politician, barrister-at-law and economist.
Early life
[
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]
Mulley was born in
Leamington Spa
,
Warwickshire
, the son of William Mulley, a general labourer from
The Fens
, and his wife Mary (nee Boiles), a domestic servant. He attended
Warwick School
on a scholarship between 1929 and 1936, leaving with the
higher school certificate
. As his father, who by this time was unemployed, could not afford to support him through university, Mulley instead became an accounts clerk under the national health insurance scheme.
[1]
He served in the
Worcestershire Regiment
during the
Second World War
, reaching the rank of
sergeant
, but was captured in 1940 and spent five years as a prisoner of war in Germany. During this time he obtained a BSc in economics from the
University of London
as an external student and became a chartered secretary.
[2]
At the end of the war, Mulley received an adult scholarship to
Christ Church, Oxford
, graduating with a
first-class degree
in politics, philosophy and economics in 1947.
[1]
After a brief spell as an economics fellow at
St Catharine's College, Cambridge
(1948?50), he trained as a barrister, being called to the Bar in 1954.
Parliamentary career
[
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]
Mulley had been a member of the Labour Party and the
National Association of Clerks and Administrative Workers
since 1936,
[1]
and at the
1945 general election
he unsuccessfully contested the constituency of
Sutton Coldfield
. He became
Member of Parliament
for
Sheffield Park
in 1950, a position he held until
deselected
by his local party prior to the
1983 general election
, when his constituency disappeared in a redistribution of boundaries.
During a long career in politics Mulley held many ministerial positions, including
Minister of Aviation
(1965?67), Minister for Disarmament (1967?69), and
Minister of Transport
(1969?70, 1974?75). While at the Transport Ministry he believed it would be inappropriate to be seen to be a car driver; thus, although he owned an
Austin Maxi
, his wife was the sole user of it during this period.
[3]
In 1975
Harold Wilson
brought him into the
Cabinet
as
Secretary of State for Education and Science
, and in 1976 became
Secretary of State for Defence
.
He fell asleep during the Queen's Jubilee Review of the Royal Air Force at
RAF Finningley
in 1977 when there was considerable noise around him. Having a small sleep during exercise was referred to by members of the RAF as having a "Fred Mulley". It was suggested in
Private Eye
that Mulley was guilty of
treason
(then still a capital offence) for having slept with the Queen.
Writing in the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, former Cabinet minister
Edmund Dell
argued that Mulley was both a party loyalist of "unassailable" working-class credentials and a genuine
Oxbridge
intellectual, an unusual combination that made him valuable to Wilson and to Wilson's successor,
James Callaghan
.
[1]
House of Lords
[
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]
After retiring from the
House of Commons
in 1983, he was created a
life peer
as
Baron Mulley
, of Manor Park in the City of
Sheffield
on 30 January 1984,
[4]
and he held a variety of directorial positions.
Legacy
[
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]
A main road in the
Lower Don Valley
in Sheffield is named after him.
References
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]
External links
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]
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