Edwin Brooks

Edwin Brooks (born 1 December 1929) is a British-born, Australia-resident academic who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) in England and a local politician both in England and in Australia.

Edwin has a wife, Wendy, Britain's youngest appointed magistrate, whom he met in Liverpool. They have been happily married for 55 years. They have four sons and a daughter: Aldric, Martin, Timothy, Benjamin and Victoria. Victoria was the 2004 Federal Labour Candidate for the Seat of Riverina and her political campaign was launched by Kevin Rudd.

Brooks was born in South Wales and went to Barry Grammar School. His National Service was spent in Singapore, after which he went to St John's College, Cambridge. After an undergraduate degree he also took his PhD there. He became a Lecturer in Geography at Liverpool University in 1954.

In 1958 Brooks was elected to Birkenhead County Borough Council as a Labour Party member. At the 1964 general election he was Labour candidate for the Bebington constituency on the Wirral Peninsula in Cheshire, losing to future Chancellor of the Exchequer and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe.

However, Brooks turned the tables in the 1966 general election when he beat Howe. In Parliament he broke the Labour whip to support an amendment to the 1967 budget to relieve charities of Purchase Tax on goods they bought to further their objects; early the next year he supported amendments to soften the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. He opposed the government's attempt to negotiate a settlement with Rhodesia. He also wanted all hereditary peers removed from the House of Lords, and called for a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war.

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