Harold Walker, Baron Walker of Doncaster

Who was Harold Walker, Baron Walker of Doncaster?

Harold Walker, Baron Walker of Doncaster, PC, DL was an English Labour politician.

Born in Audenshaw, Walker was educated at Manchester College of Technology and became a toolmaker. He served in the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm and was a lecturer for the National Council of Labour Colleges.

Walker was elected member of Parliament for Doncaster at the 1964 general election. He was a junior whip and then junior employment minister in the first Harold Wilson government, and continued being spokesman on employment in opposition, returning to the ministry in 1974. He was Minister of State at the Department of Employment 1976-79 and he became a Privy Counsellor in 1979.

Walker left the employment brief in 1983 following that year's general election, and became Chairman of Ways and Means & Deputy Speaker to Bernard Weatherill. He did not, however, become Speaker when Weatherill retired in 1992, that honour instead going to Betty Boothroyd. He was knighted in 1992 and returned to the backbenches.

Walker retired in 1997 and was made a life peer as Baron Walker of Doncaster, of Audenshaw in the County of Greater Manchester.