Ray Gunter

Raymond Jones Gunter (30 August 1909 – 12 April 1977) was a British Labour Party politician. He was born in Wales and had a background in the railway industry and the British trade union movement – specifically his union, the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA).

After seeing active service in the Second World War, enlisting in the Royal Engineers in 1941 and later being commissioned and reaching the rank of Captain, he was elected to Parliament in the 1945 general election for the previously Conservative seat of South East Essex. He was a backbencher throughout the six-year Labour Government of Clement Attlee. The Labour Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, presided over a redistribution of seats in the late 1940s and Gunter's Essex seat was broken up, so he switched to the seat of Doncaster in Yorkshire for the 1950 general election. Elected by a majority of only 878, his Conservative opponent, Anthony Barber, went on to unseat him by 384 votes in the 1951 general election that saw the return of a Conservative Government under Winston Churchill.