Ivor Davies

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Ivor Davies (born August 12, 1915 – died 1986) was a British Liberal Party activist and parliamentary candidate; journalist and United Nations Association administrator^[1]. Politically, his chief claim to fame was his decision in October 1938 to withdraw as Liberal candidate at the Oxford by-election along with the Labour candidate Patrick Gordon-Walker to allow an independent, Popular Front, anti-Munich candidate, A.D.Lindsay, the Master of Balliol, to challenge the government candidate Quintin Hogg.

Davies was born at Pontrhydygroes in Cardiganshire the son of a Congregationalist minister. He was educated in West London and Edinburgh, where he also attended George Watson’s College. He then went to Edinburgh University where he became President of the Union of University Liberal Societies. After University he went to work as a journalist on the News Chronicle and wrote for other publications. During this time he was adopted as Liberal candidate for Central Aberdeenshire.

However in 1938, he was chosen, as a rising star in the Liberal Party, to contest the by-election which occurred following the death of Captain R C Bourne the Conservative MP for Oxford. His only real connection with Oxford was that he had presided at a Liberal students’ conference there earlier that year^[2]. The Munich Agreement had been signed at the end of September and appeasement was central in the by-election campaign. In the end, perhaps due to Lindsay’s inexperience and lack of the common touch, perhaps to Hogg’s superior political skills, perhaps due to Labour’s less than wholehearted support of Lindsay^[3] – Hogg won the seat, albeit with a reduced majority.

During the war, Davies enlisted in the Royal Air Force and rose to Acting Flight Lieutenant, serving in Burma where he was wounded. In 1940 he married Jean McLeod whom he had known from Edinburgh. They had one son, John, who became a Labour Party politician, standing against Margaret Thatcher in Finchley in 1987 and a daughter Mary who like her father was president of the Edinburgh University Liberal Club and was an elected Liberal councillor in Havering.

Davies fought Central Aberdeenshire for the Liberals in 1945 and West Aberdeenshire in 1950. He contested Oxford in 1955, 1959 and 1964 raising the Liberal vote and he became a member of the Liberal Party Council. In 1962 he was elected to Oxford City Council. He was always on the radical wing of the party and was in particular a supporter of nuclear disarmament being one time chair of Oxford CND. He was awarded the CBE for political and public service in 1984.

[edit] References

^ John Davies, Keeper of the Liberal Flame; Journal of Liberal History, Issue 34/35, Sprin/Summer 2002
^ C.Cook & J. Ramsden, By-elections in British politics, UCL Press, 1997
^ R Grayson, Liberals, International Relations and Appeasement; Frank Cass