Andrew Faulds

Who was Andrew Faulds?

Andrew Matthew William Faulds was a British actor and politician.

Born in Isoko, Tanganyika Territory, to missionary parents, Faulds married Bunty Whitfield in 1945. After graduating from the University of Glasgow, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1948 but first came to a wider public recognition playing Jet Morgan in Charles Chilton's radio drama Journey into Space on the BBC Light Programme.

In 1959, Faulds and his wife played host to Paul Robeson who had travelled to Britain to appear at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon in Tony Richardson's production of Othello. Robeson had only recently been allowed to travel abroad again following the revocation of his passport. It was during this visit that Robeson inspired Faulds to take up political activism.

In the UK general election, 1964, the Labour Foreign Secretary, Patrick Gordon Walker, had been defeated in controversial circumstances in the Smethwick constituency by Conservative candidate Peter Griffiths.