Roy Hattersley

Hattersley was born on 28 December 1932 in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, to Enid Brackenbury and Frederick Roy Hattersley (1902–1972)[1] always known by his middle name),[2] who married in the 1950s.[3] His mother was a city councillor, and later served as Lord Mayor of Sheffield (1981). His father, at various times a police officer, clerk at Sheffield town hall, and chairman of the council's Health Committee,[4][5] was a former Roman Catholic priest,[3] the parish priest at St Joseph's at Shirebrook in Nottingham,[6] who renounced the church and left the priesthood to cohabit with Hattersley's mother, Enid, a married woman at whose wedding he had officiated two weeks earlier; Frederick Hattersley died an atheist in 1973.[7]

Hattersley was a socialist and Labour supporter from his youth, electioneering at the age of 12 for his local MP and city councillors, beginning in 1945. He won a scholarship to Sheffield City Grammar School[8] and went from there to study at the University of Hull. Having been accepted to read English at the University of Leeds,[9] he was diverted into reading Economics at Hull when told by a Sheffield colleague of his mother that it was necessary for a political career.

At university Hattersley joined the Socialist Society (SocSoc) and was one of those responsible for changing its name to the "Labour Club" and affiliating it with the non-aligned International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) rather than the Soviet-backed International Union of Students. Hattersley became chairman of the new club and later treasurer, and he went on to chair the National Association of Labour Student Organisations. He also joined the executive of the IUSY.

After graduating Hattersley worked briefly for a Sheffield steelworks and then for two years with the Workers' Educational Association. He married his first wife Molly, who became a headteacher and educational administrator. In 1956 he was elected to the City Council as Labour representative for Crookesmoor and was, very briefly, a JP. On the Council he spent time as chairman of the Public Works Committee and then the Housing Committee.

His aim became a Westminster seat, and he was eventually selected for Labour to stand for election in the Sutton Coldfield constituency but lost to the Conservative Geoffrey Lloyd in 1959. He kept hunting for prospective candidacies, applying for twenty-five seats over three years. In 1963 he was chosen as the prospective parliamentary candidate for the multi-racial Birmingham Sparkbrook constituency (following a well-known local 'character', Jack Webster) and facing a Conservative majority of just under 900. On 16 October 1964 he defeated the Conservative party candidate, Michael J. Donnelly, and was elected with a majority of 1,254 votes; he was to hold that seat for the next eight general elections.

The 1992 general election was held on 9 April 1992, but saw a fourth consecutive Labour defeat by the Conservatives. Kinnock announced his resignation as party leader on 13 April, and on the same day Hattersley announced his intention to resign from the deputy leadership of the party, with the intention of carrying on in their roles until the new leadership was elected that summer.[13]Hattersley supported his friend John Smith in the leadership contest, which Smith won in July that year.

In June 1993, Hattersley cancelled an appearance on TV panel show Have I Got News For You with very late notice, this infuriated the staff and hosts, leading to Hattersley being replaced with a tub of lard. The programme compared Hattersley and the tub of lard, and claimed "they possessed the same qualities and were liable to give similar performances".[14]

In February 1994, Hattersley announced he would leave politics at the following general election. He was made a life peer as Baron Hattersley, of Sparkbrook in the County of West Midlands on 24 November 1997.[15]

Hattersley was long regarded as being on the right-wing of the party, but with New Labour in power he found himself criticising a Labour government from the left, even claiming that "Blair's Labour Party is not the Labour Party I joined". He mentioned repeatedly that he would be supporting Gordon Brown as leader.[16]

Hattersley retired from the House of Lords on 19 May 2017.[17]

Hattersley is the author of three novels and several biographies. He has written biographies on religious topics, and on the Edwardian period as well. His 700-page biography of David Lloyd George The Great Outsider: David Lloyd George was published by Little, Brown in 2010.

In 1996 he was fined for an incident involving his dog, Buster, after it killed a goose in one of London's royal parks. He later wrote the "diary" of Buster, writing from the dog's perspective on the incident, in which it claimed to have acted in self-defence.[18]

In 2008, Hattersley appeared in a documentary on the DVD for the Doctor Who serial Doctor Who and the Silurians, to discuss the political climate that existed at the time of making the serial. He now writes a regular column for the Daily Mail, "In Search of England", about different parts of the United Kingdom; it normally appears in the paper on Tuesdays. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.[19]

Hattersley married his first wife the educationalist Molly in 1956. They divorced in April 2013 after 57 years of marriage, having been separated for five years. They had no children. In summer 2013, he married Maggie Pearlstine, his literary agent and sister of Norman Pearlstine.

Hattersley supports a British republic, but took a seat in the House of Lords from 1997 to 2017.[20] Hattersley is a dedicated supporter of Sheffield Wednesday.

• David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider Little Brown (2010) ISBN 978-1-4087-0097-6
• Buster's Secret Diaries (2007) ISBN 978-0-297-85216-2
• Campbell-Bannerman (2006) ISBN 978-1-9049-5056-1
• The Edwardians: Biography of the Edwardian Age (2004) ISBN 0-316-72537-4
• The Life of John Wesley: A Brand from the Burning (2002) ISBN 978-0-385-50334-1
• Buster's Diaries (1999) ISBN 0-7515-2917-6
• Blood and Fire: William and Catherine Booth and the Salvation Army (1999) ISBN 0-316-85161-2
• 50 Years on: Prejudiced History of Britain Since the War (1997) ISBN 0-316-87932-0
• No Discouragement: An Autobiography (1996) ISBN 0-333-64957-5
• Who Goes Home?: Scenes from a Political Life (1995) ISBN 0-316-87669-0
• Between Ourselves (1994) ISBN 0-330-32574-4
• Skylark's Song (1993) ISBN 0-333-55608-9
• In That Quiet Earth (1993) ISBN 0-330-32303-2
• The Maker's Mark (1990) ISBN 0-333-47032-X
• Choose Freedom: Future of Democratic Socialism (1987) ISBN 0-14-010494-1
• A Yorkshire Boyhood (1983) ISBN 0-7011-2613-2
• with Eric Heffer, Neil Kinnock and Peter Shore Labour's Choices (1983)
• Press Gang (1983) ISBN 0-86051-205-3
• Goodbye to Yorkshire (1976) ISBN 0-575-02201-9

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Roy Hattersley

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Roy Hattersley
• Buster's Diaries official site
• Guardian columns by Roy Hattersley
• New Statesman articles by Roy Hattersley
• Roy Hattersley, New Statesman, 10 May 2004, 'We should have made it clear that we too were modernisers'
• Roy Hattersley and Kevin Hickson Political Quarterly, 8 September 2011,In Praise of Social Democracy