Frederick Mulley

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Frederick William Mulley, Baron Mulley, PC, (3 July 1918 – 15 March 1995) was a British Labour politician, barrister-at-law, and economist.

A pupil at Warwick School between 1929 and 1936, he served in the Worcestershire Regiment in the Second World War, but was captured in 1940 and spent five years as a prisoner of war in Germany. During this time he obtained a BSc in Economics and became a Chartered Secretary.

At the end of the war, he received an Adult Scholarship to Christ Church College, Oxford, and after a brief spell on an economics fellowship at the University of Cambridge (1948-50) he trained as a barrister, being called to the Bar in 1954.

A member of the Labour Party since 1936, he unsuccessfully contested the constituency of Sutton Coldfield in 1945, and became Member of Parliament for Sheffield Park in 1950, a position he held until retiring at the 1983 General Election.

During a long career in politics he held a variety of ministerial positions including Minister of Aviation (1965-7), Minister for Disarmament (1967-9), and Minister of Transport (1969-70, 1974-5). In 1975 Harold Wilson brought him to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science, and in 1976 became Secretary of State for Defence.

He is best remember by the Royal Air Force for falling asleep during the Queen's Jubilee Review of the RAF at Finningley in 1977 when there was considerable noise around him. Having a small sleep during exercise was referred to by members of the RAF as having a "Fred Mulley". It was suggested in the satirical magazine Private Eye that Mulley was guilty of treason for having slept with the Queen, a crime that still carries the death penalty in Britain.

After retiring from the House of Commons in 1983, he was awarded a life peerage as Baron Mulley, of Manor Park in the City of Sheffield in 1984 and held a variety of directorial positions.

There is a main road named after him in the Lower Don Valley in Sheffield.

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Thomas William Burden	Member of Parliament for Sheffield Park 1950–1983	Succeeded by constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded by Reginald Prentice	Secretary of State for Education and Science 1975–1976	Succeeded by Shirley Williams
Preceded by Roy Mason	Secretary of State for Defence 1976–1979	Succeeded by Francis Pym