Bob Mellish, Baron Mellish
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The Right Honourable The Lord Mellish PC |
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|---|---|
| Chief Whip of the Labour Party | |
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In office 30 April 1969 – 8 April 1976 |
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| Leader |
Harold Wilson James Callaghan |
| Preceded by | John Silkin |
| Succeeded by | Michael Cocks |
| Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury | |
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In office 4 March 1974 – 8 April 1976 |
|
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Humphrey Atkins |
| Succeeded by | Michael Cocks |
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In office 30 April 1969 – 19 June 1970 |
|
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | John Silkin |
| Succeeded by | Francis Pym |
| Minister for Public Buildings and Works | |
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In office 29 August 1967 – 30 April 1969 |
|
| Prime Minister | Harold Wilson |
| Preceded by | Reg Prentice |
| Succeeded by | John Silkin |
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Member of Parliament for Bermondsey |
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In office 23 February 1950 – 2 August 1982 |
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| Preceded by | Constituency Created |
| Succeeded by | Simon Hughes |
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Member of Parliament for Rotherhithe |
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In office 19 November 1946 – 23 February 1950 |
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| Preceded by | Ben Smith |
| Succeeded by | Constituency Abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
3 March 1913 Deptford, United Kingdom |
| Died | 9 May 1998 (aged 85) |
| Political party | Liberal Democrats (1988–1998) |
| Other political affiliations |
Labour (Before 1981–1988) |
Robert Joseph Mellish, Baron Mellish, PC (3 March 1913 – 9 May 1998) was a British politician. He was a long-serving Labour Party MP (from 1946 to 1982) and served as the Labour Chief Whip from 1969 until 1976, but in his later years he fell out with his local Constituency Labour Party which had become dominated by left-wingers, and eventually left the party.
Mellish was born in Deptford to John Mellish and his wife Mary Elizabeth Carroll, the thirteenth of fourteen children. His father, a docker, had taken part in the dockers' strikes of 1899 and 1912. After he left school he worked for the Transport and General Workers' Union and when the Second World War started in 1939 he was called up and ended the war as a Major in the Royal Engineers fighting the Japanese in South-East Asia.
When Sir Ben Smith resigned from Parliament, the Rotherhithe constituency was vacated. Most local opinion favoured Dr John Gillison who represented the area on the London County Council but Mellish was selected after the TGWU dockers' delegates voted for him en bloc. He easily won the constituency in a by-election in 1946. This constituency was expanded in 1950 and named Bermondsey.
In 1950 he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of Supply, George Strauss, and then in 1951 as PPS to the Minister for Pensions, George Isaacs. He was also Chairman of the London Regional Labour Party from 1956 to 1977.
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