Arthur Bottomley

Who was Arthur Bottomley?

Arthur George Bottomley, Baron Bottomley, OBE, PC was a British Labour politician, Member of Parliament and minister.

Before entering parliament he was a trade union organiser of the National Union of Public Employees. From 1929 to 1949 he was a councillor on Walthamstow Borough Council, and in 1945-1946 he was Mayor of Walthamstow.

He was first elected to parliament in the 1945 general election for the Chatham division of Rochester and he held the seat until losing it in the 1959 general election to the Conservative Julian Critchley. He returned to parliament by winning Middlesbrough East in a by-election in 1962 and held the seat, and its successor Middlesbrough, until his retirement in 1983.

He was a junior minister in Clement Attlee's governments, being Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and Secretary for Overseas Trade at the Board of Trade. In Harold Wilson's governments he was Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations — during which time he sought to deal with the consequences of Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence — and Minister of Overseas Development.