Robert Davies

Who was Robert Davies?

Robert Malcolm Deryck Davies, OBE was a British Labour Party politician.

He was educated at Reading School, and London and Oxford Universities. For many years he was Secretary of the Department of Applied Economics at Cambridge University. He was also a Labour member of Cambridge City Council for East Chesterton ward from 1954 to 1964. In 1941 he married Katharine Wing. The couple had no children.

At the 1966 general election, he was elected Member of Parliament for Cambridge, winning the seat by just 439 votes from the Conservatives at his third attempt, after the retirement of Hamilton Kerr. He had previously contested the seat in the general elections of 1959 and 1964, and also contested the surrounding seat of Cambridgeshire during a 1961 by-election. He died in office only fifteen months after being elected, aged 49, and the resulting by-election for his seat was won by the Conservative candidate, David Lane.

Descended from a Welsh farming family, his grandfather, Jenkin Davies, was a leading Berkshire agriculturalist and County Councillor. The Davies Family History Website has details of his pedigree.