Hugh Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Putney

Hugh Gater Jenkins, Baron Jenkins of Putney, PC (27 July 1908 – 26 January 2004) was a British politician, campaigner and Labour Party member of Parliament and the House of Lords.

Jenkins was Member of Parliament for Putney and served as Arts Minister from 1974 to 1976. He was the Chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) between 1979 and 1981, succeeded by Joan Ruddock.

His private papers are held at the London School of Economics.

Jenkins was born in Enfield, Middlesex into a 'modest' family, his parents being a dairyman and a butcher's daughter. He attended Enfield Grammar School and went to work for the Prudential Assurance 1930-40. He married his first wife, Marie Crosbie, in 1936. She died in 1989 and he married a second time to Helena Maria Pavlidis in 1991, separating in 1994. During World War II he served with the Royal Observer Corps and the Royal Air Force from 1941, and after the war worked at Rangoon Radio until 1947, where he was director of English programmes.

An ardent left-winger, Jenkins was active in the Prudential Staff Association, the National Union of Bank Employees and the actors' union Equity, of which he was assistant general secretary 1957-64. He and his wife, Marie, became active in the politics of his local community in the County Borough of Croydon, Surrey. Jenkins chaired his local Upper Norwood Labour Party and stood for the Council, and Marie was elected to Croydon Council for Whitehorse Manor ward in 1949. He stood for Parliament without success in Enfield West in 1950 and Mitcham in 1955. Jenkins was involved in the Victory for Socialism group opposed to the 1956 Suez War and had been a supporter of CND and nuclear disarmament since its foundation in 1957. In 1958 he became a London County Councillor for Hackney North & Stoke Newington until 1965 and served on the London Labour Party executive in 1962. He was also involved with the Arts Council.

...
Wikipedia