| AdminHistory | George Darling was Labour MP for Hillsborough, Sheffield from 1950 - 1974. He was preceded by A.V. Alexander and succeeded in 1974 by
Martin Flannery.
George Darling was born on 20 July 1905 in Crewe, Cheshire, the son of a Co-op Society shop assistant. His first job was as an engineering apprentice at Crewe railway workshops. He was later employed by the Cooperative Warehouse Society (CWS) in Manchester, where he met his future wife, Dorothy (nee Hodge). He received his higher education at Liverpool University and, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, at Magdalene College, Cambridge.
He became interested in labour politics at an early age. Between 1923 - 1925, he was vice-chairman of the Crewe Branch of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) Guild of Youth. In 1935, he fought the Macclesfield constituency as a Labour candidate. In 1950, he was returned for Hillsborough. He entered the Cabinet in 1964, serving as Minister of State at the Board of Trade from1964 to 1968, but resigned in 1968 due to ill health. He was appointed a Privy Councillor in 1966. He resigned from the Commons in 1974, when he received a life peerage (as Baron Darling of Hillsborough, of Crewe in the County of Cheshire).
His interests related mainly to consumer protection and waste disposal. He was President of the Institute of Trading Standards Administration. He was also Vice President of the Council of Europe Assembly and Chairman of its Economic Affairs Committee from 1970. In May 1976, he was appointed Chairman of an informal joint committee on electronic data processing (EDP) information systems for both houses, and maintained a strong interest in EDP applications in the House of Lords Library and Record Office.
He died on 18 October 1985. |
| Description | Collection mainly comprises personal papers and does not include constituency material other than a few election addresses and some miscellaneous correspondence:
Lecture notes, 1927 - 1930 (LD2404/1)
Diaries, 1923 - 1933 (LD2404/2)
Autograph book, 1922 - 1925 (LD2404/3)
Material relating to early political career, 1924 - 1932 (LD2404/4)
Dorothy Hodge’s academic certificates, 1923 - 1931 (LD2404/5)
Correspondence relating to later political activity, 1944 - 1985 (LD2404/6)
Papers relating George Darling’s visit to New Zealand in 1967, 1944 - 1967 (LD2404/7) |