The Right Honourable
The Lord Aylestone
CH CBE PC
Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs
In office
1 August 1966 – 29 August 1967
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Preceded byArthur Bottomley (Commonwealth Relations)
Succeeded byGeorge Thomson
Leader of the House of Commons
Lord President of the Council
In office
16 October 1964 – 11 August 1966
Prime MinisterHarold Wilson
Preceded bySelwyn Lloyd
(Leader of Commons)
Quintin Hogg
(President of Council)
Succeeded byRichard Crossman
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
3 November 1967 – 30 April 1994
Life Peerage
Member of Parliament
for Leicester South West
Leicester South (1945–1950)
In office
5 July 1945 – 2 November 1967
Preceded byCharles Waterhouse
Succeeded byTom Boardman
Personal details
Born20 January 1905
Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom
Died30 April 1994(1994-04-30) (aged 89)
Worthing, West Sussex, United Kingdom
Political partyILP (until 1936)
Labour (1936–81)
SDP (1981–88)
'Continuing' SDP (1988–90)
Liberal Democrats (1992–94)
Spouses
Louisa Brown
​
​
(m. 1928; died 1992)​
    Vicki Clayton
    ​
    (m. 1993)​

    Herbert William Bowden, Baron Aylestone, CH, CBE, PC (20 January 1905 – 30 April 1994) was a British Labour politician.

    Early life

    Born in Cardiff, Wales,[1] Bowden was the son of Herbert Bowden, a baker, and his wife Henrietta (née Gould). Bowden later recalled that "I was born with the smell of bread in my nostrils and lived around the bakehouses. I always had one thought in mind – never to be employed in them."[2] After completing elementary school he opened a tobacconist's shop, but following the collapse of his business during the Great Depression he left Cardiff to look for work elsewhere, eventually becoming a radio salesman in Leicester.[1]

    Political career

    Bowden had been a member of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) as a young man, but sided with the Labour Party when the two parties disagreed over how best to support the Republican faction in the Spanish Civil War.[1] In 1938, he was elected to sit on Leicester City Council, and later that year became president of the city's Labour Party. Having served as a flying officer in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Bowden was elected MP for Leicester South at the 1945 general election, and then for Leicester South West from 1950 until his retirement from the House of Commons in 1967. He was appointed a whip in 1949 and a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in 1950. From 1951 onwards, he was Deputy Chief Whip, then Chief Whip throughout Labour's years in opposition. Bowden was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1953 Coronation Honours.[3]

    Bowden was regarded as being on the right of the Labour Party, and supported Hugh Gaitskell in his battles with the left before switching his allegiance to Harold Wilson following Gaitskell's death in 1963.[4] He was, as the Daily Telegraph later commented, somewhat "traditional" in his mindset, representing the "authentic... old hat, passé, reactionary voice of the Labour Party", but his forthright attitude to party discipline (which had earned him the sobriquet "The Sergeant Major" amongst Labour MPs) made him an efficient and much-respected parliamentary whip.[2][4] Thus, when Labour returned to power in 1964, Bowden was appointed Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, having become a Privy Counsellor in 1962. In 1966, he was moved to the new post of Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs, serving until 1967. On 1 September 1967 he succeeded Lord Hill as chairman of the Independent Television Authority.[5]

    On 20 September 1967, Bowden was created a life peer as Baron Aylestone, of Aylestone in the City of Leicester, taking the Labour whip.[6] He was appointed a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the 1975 Birthday Honours, and from 1984 to 1992 was a Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords.[7][8] To many people's surprise,[4] he left Labour to join the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. Remaining with the SDP throughout the party's existence, after its demise in 1988 he chose to follow David Owen's breakaway 'continuing' SDP rather than support the merger with the Liberals. When the Owenite rump itself dissolved two years later, Aylestone sat in the Lords as an 'Independent Social Democrat' before joining the Liberal Democrats in 1992.[4][9]

    Death

    Lord Aylestone died in 1994, aged 89, in Worthing, Sussex, and was survived by his second wife and a daughter from his first marriage.[1][8]

    References

    1. 1 2 3 4 David Lewis Jones (1 June 2011). "Bowden, Herbert William, Baron Aylestone (1905-1994), politician". Dictionary of Welsh Biography. National Library of Wales. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
    2. 1 2 "Obituaries: Lord Aylestone", Daily Telegraph, 2 May 1994, p. 21.
    3. ↑ "No. 39863". The London Gazette (Supplement). 1 June 1953. p. 2954.
    4. 1 2 3 4 "Obituaries: Lord Aylestone", The Times, 2 May 1994, p. 17.
    5. ↑ "Lord Hill's successor Herbert Bowden new Chairman of ITA". The Stage and Television Today. No. 445. 31 August 1967. p. 9. Retrieved 10 July 2019 – via British Newspaper Archive.
    6. ↑ "No. 44412". The London Gazette. 21 September 1967. p. 10287.
    7. ↑ "No. 46593". The London Gazette (Supplement). 14 June 1975. p. 7390.
    8. 1 2 "AYLESTONE, Baron (Herbert William Bowden)". Who's Who & Who Was Who. Vol. 2023 (online ed.). A & C Black. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
    9. ↑ Martin Linton, "Top sports events 'must stay with BBC and ITV': Lords debate", The Guardian, 6 June 1990, p. 6.
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