Frank Allaun

Who was Frank Allaun?

Frank Julian Allaun was a British Labour politician.

Born in Manchester, Allaun was educated at Manchester Grammar School and worked as an engineer, shop assistant, tour leader, chartered accountant and journalist. He helped to organise the first Aldermaston March in 1958 and was chair of the Labour Peace Fellowship. Allaun was against British membership of the EEC.

Allaun contested Manchester Moss Side in 1951. He was Member of Parliament for Salford East from 1955 to 1983.

He was a veteran of leftwing causes, especially the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, of which he was vice president from 1983. Allaun wrote several books on nuclear weapons including Stop the H-Bomb Race and The Wasted 30 Billions.

Naive or optimistic, or just unappreciative of war culture, Allaun was a straight up-and-down idealist. His style was intensely gentle, the voice never raised, but the questions - chiefly on peace and housing - insistent. The beautiful manners and the soft Lancashire voice must have got on ministerial nerves. But then, as one of the organisers of the first Aldermaston march, he helped launch a movement whose appeal in the late 1950s and 1960s did more than get on nerves.