Leslie Hale, Baron Hale

Hale was the son of Benjamin George Hale, a managing director.[2] He went to the Ashby Grammar School and trained to be a solicitor in Leicester.[3] Thereafter Hale practised first in his hometown Coalville, later in Nuneaton and finally in London.[3]

Hale joined Leicestershire County Council in 1925, aged twenty-three.[3] Four years later he contested Nottingham South unsuccessfully for the Liberal Party.[4] Hale entered the British House of Commons as a Labour member in 1945, having been elected as one of the MPs in of the two-member constituency of Oldham.[4] He represented this constituency until 1950, when it was abolished and split into two divisions.[4] Hale was subsequently returned to Parliament for Oldham West, a seat he held for eighteen years until 1968,[4] when he resigned for health reasons.[5] On 24 April 1972, he was created a life peer with the title Baron Hale of Oldham.[6]

Hale acted as the solicitor for the Spiritualists National Union, and spoke in Parliament for the repeal of the Witchcraft Act 1735 in favour of the Fraudulent Mediums Act.[7]

In 1926 Hale married Dorothy Ann Latham; the couple had a son as well a daughter.[2] He died in 1985.[1]

• Thirty Who Were Tried; (1955)
• John Philpot Curran; (1958)
• Blood on the Scales; (1960)
• Hanged in Error; (1961)
• Hanging in the Balance; (1962)

• Who's Who 1963. London: Adam & Charles Black Ltd. 1963.
• Charles Roger Dod and Robert Philip Dod (1984). J. Berwick Smith (ed.). Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1984. London: Dod's Parliamentary Companion Ltd.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
• Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes for 1969. London: Kelly's Directories Ltd. 1969.
• Vacher's Parliamentary Companion 1985. London: A. S. Kerswill. 1985.

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Leslie Hale