Somerville Hastings

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Somerville Hastings FRCS MP (March 4, 1878)[1]7 July 1967) was a British Labour Party politician.

He was educated at Wycliffe College (Gloucestershire), University College and the Middlesex Hospital, London [1].

He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Reading, in Berkshire, from 1923 to 1924, and from 1929 to 1931. He returned to the House of Commons at the 1945 general election as MP for Barking, holding the seat until his retirement at the 1959 general election.

Hastings was founder President of the Socialist Medical Association (SMA) 1930-51. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the First World War, followed by work as an aural surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital. He was a Member of the London County Council for fourteen years.

He was the author of

  • The Future of Medical Practice in England The Lancet 1928
  • Fabian Tracts no 241 A National Physiological Minimum January 1934, and no 359
  • The Development of the Health Services February 1943 (and many other leaflets and tracts for the Socialist Medical Association)
  • The Family And The Social Services with Peggy Jay February 1965

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b ODNB article by John Stewart, ‘Hastings, Somerville (1878–1967)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [1], accessed 8 Oct 2007
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Edward Cadogan
Member of Parliament for Reading
19231924
Succeeded by
Herbert Williams
Preceded by
Herbert Williams
Member of Parliament for Reading
19291931
Succeeded by
Alfred Bakewell Howitt
Preceded by
(new constituency)
Member of Parliament for Barking
19451959
Succeeded by
Tom Driberg