Thomas Burlison, Baron Burlison

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Personal information
Tom Burlison
Full name	Thomas Henry Burlison
Date of birth	23 May 1936(1936-05-23)
Place of birth	Edmondsley, England
Date of death	20 May 2008 (aged 71)
Place of death	Gateshead, England
Playing position	Wing-half
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1954–1957 1957–1964 1964–1965	Lincoln City Hartlepools United Darlington	000 (0) 148 (5) 026 (2)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Thomas Henry Burlison, Baron Burlison, DL (23 May 1936 – 20 May 2008) was a British footballer and GMB trade unionist. He was the first professional footballer to take a seat in the House of Lords.

Burlison was was born in Edmondsley, County Durham, the son of Robert and Georgina Burlison. He was educated in Edmondsley and worked as panel beater from 1951 to 1957, joining the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trades Union (later the GMB).

He was a professional footballer from 1953 to 1965 (playing for Lincoln City, Hartlepool United and Darlington). Between 1959 and 1961, he did National Service in the Royal Air Force.

A polite and unassuming man with a low profile, he was an effective "fixer" behind the scenes. He became a regional officer of the GMB in 1965, and regional secretary in 1978. He was runner-up behind John Edmonds in the election for general secrttary of the GMB in 1985, but served deputy general secretary of the renamed GMB Union from 1991 to 1996, and treasurer of the Labour Party from 1992 to 1996. He was chairman of the TUC northern region for nine years. He was also a trustee of the Board of Governors of the University of Northumbria, a Deputy Lieutenant and Honorary President of Hartlepool United F.C.. He was an important moderniser on Labour's National Executive Committee in the years before the party's landslide victory at the 1997 UK general election.

On 21 October 1997, he was created a life peer as Baron Burlison of Rowlands Gill, in the County of Tyne and Wear. He was a working peer, and was a Lord in Waiting (a Government whip in the House of Lords) from 1999 to 2001.

Burlison married Valerie Stephenson since 1981. They had two sons and one daughter.

Burlison lived in Rowlands Gill, Tyne and Wear, for at least 20 years. He died in Gateshead on 20 May 2008 at the age of 71.^[1]