Donald Coleman

Donald Richard Coleman, CBE, JP, DL (19 September 1925 – 14 January 1991) was the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) in the United Kingdom for Neath from 1964 until his death in 1991.

Coleman was born in Barry, the son of a coalminer, Albert Archer Coleman, and his wife, Winifred Marguerite. Fore most of the inter-war years, his father was unemployed, and did not find permanent work until 1939. This instilled in his son a life—long belief in the evils of unemployment.

He was educated at Cadoxton Boys' School, Barry, and Cardiff Technical College. He later attended University College of Wales Swansea as a mature student between 1950 and 1954. He held a number of technical positions at various laboratories at Cardiff and Swansea before securing an appointment in 1954 as metallurgist to the Research Department of the Steel Company of Wales, Abbey Works, Port Talbot, in which position he remained until his election to parliament in the General Election of October 1964. Coleman had joined the Labour Party in November 1948 and became a member of the Co—operative Party in 1955. He had also stood as a Labour candidate for Swansea Borough Council in 1960.

Until the 1960s, Neath was regarded, as a predominantly coal—mining constituency, as a seat where the nominee of the National Union of Mineworkers would have a considerable advantage at the selection conference. Indeed, both of Coleman's long-serving predecessors had been NUM nominees. However, Coleman, against the expectations, was chosen at the fourth ballot and thus inherited one of the safest Labour seats in the whole of Britain.

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