Victor Collins, Baron Stonham

Who was Victor Collins, Baron Stonham?

Victor John Collins, Baron Stonham PC was a British Labour Party politician.

Born in Whitechapel, London, he was elected at the 1945 general election as Member of Parliament for Taunton, in Somerset. He lost his seat at the 1950, to the Conservative Henry Hopkinson. Victor has been the only Labour Member of Parliament for the Taunton Constituency.

Collins returned to he House of Commons at a by-election in 1954, when he was elected as MP for the inner London constituency of Shoreditch and Finsbury, following the death of the Labour MP Ernest Thurtle.

He left the Commons in August 1958, when he was made a life peer as Baron Stonham, of Earl Stonham in the County of Suffolk. In Harold Wilson's Labour Government 1964-1970, he served as a junior minister at the Home Office from 1964 to 1967, and as Minister of State in the Home Office until 1969. As Minister of State at the Home Office with responsibility for Northern Ireland he made a three-day visit there starting on 4 June 1968.

He was appointed as a Privy Counsellor in 1969. He died in Enfield aged 68.