David Webb (anti-censorship campaigner)

David Alec Webb, known as David Webb, was born at Luton, 6 March 1931 and died at Trinity Hospice, Clapham, South London on 30 June 2012. He was the second child and only son of Alec Webb, from whom he took his middle name.

David Webb attended Luton Grammar School from 1942–50, did his National Service from 1950–52, and trained with RADA 1952-4. In 1954 he joined the York Repertory Company; 1955 the Bromley Repertory Company; and from 1955–6 he toured in the play Love From Judy.

He moved into television, appearing in Dixon of Dock Green, Doctor Who,[1] and several other series.[2] His fifty-one appearances on television started in the early 1960s, and increased throughout; the majority were in the 1970s, and his television work was not much slowed down by his activism during the '70s and '80s.[2]

In April 1976 he set up the anti-censorship pressure group NCROPA as the National Campaign for the Repeal of the Obscene Publications Acts;[3] this would shortly be amended to National Campaign for the Reform of the Obscene Publications Acts.

NCROPA was very active from its inception through the 1980s, and in 1983 Webb stood as the anti-censorship candidate against the incumbent Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her Finchley constituency. He was also a member of the Campaign Against Censorship. By the late 1990s, NCROPA was more or less moribund, and had been inactive for some time before its founder's death. In December 2014, NCROPA was formally merged with the CAC.

David Webb never married. He was a secular humanist. He was cremated at Mortlake Crematorium on 17 July 2012.

References

  1. ↑ "Doctor Who: The Classic Series: Colony In Space". BBC. (see Colony in Space)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "David Webb". TV.com.
  3. ↑ "NCROPA Papers - 1976". London Evening Standard. London. 29 April 1976.

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