Frank Beswick, Baron Beswick

Frank Beswick, Baron Beswick, PC (21 August 1911 – 17 August 1987) was a British Labour Co-operative politician.

The Right Honourable The Lord Beswick PC
Deputy Leader of the House of Lords
In office February 1974 – December 1975
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Leader	The Lord Shepherd
Preceded by	The Lord Aberdare
Succeeded by	The Lord Goronwy-Roberts
Minister of State for Industry
In office 11 March 1974 – 4 December 1975
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	Eric Heffer
Succeeded by	Gerald Kaufman
Chief Whip of the House of Lords Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms
In office 29 July 1967 – 24 June 1970
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	The Lord Shepherd
Succeeded by	The Earl St Aldwyn
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Affairs
In office 11 October 1965 – 26 July 1967
Prime Minister	Harold Wilson
Preceded by	The Lord Taylor
Succeeded by	William Whitlock
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal
In office 18 December 1964 – 17 August 1987 Life Peerage
Member of Parliament for Uxbridge
In office 5 July 1945 – 18 September 1959
Preceded by	John Llewellin
Succeeded by	Charles Curran
Personal details
Born	Frank Beswick (1911-08-21)21 August 1911 Hucknall, Nottinghamshire, England, UK
Died	17 August 1987(1987-08-17) (aged 75)
Political party	Labour Co-operative
Occupation	Politician

Born in 1911 in Nottingham, Beswick's father was a coal miner. He was educated in Nottingham and then at the Working Men's College in London. He became a journalist and was elected to the London County Council. He was in Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

Already a qualified pilot, he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War and served with Transport Command. A Sergeant Pilot, he was commissioned Pilot Officer in April 1942, and promoted Flying Officer in October 1942 and Flight Lieutenant in March 1944. He remained in the RAFVR after the war, resigning his commission in 1952.

Beswick was elected to Parliament for Uxbridge in 1945 and served until 1959. He was one of the British observers at the 1946 Bikini atomic tests. Following Labour's loss at the 1951 election, he became civil aviation correspondent for the Reynolds News, having been Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Civil Aviation. When he lost his seat in 1959, he was appointed political secretary of the London Co-operative Society.

He was created Baron Beswick, of Hucknall in the County of Nottinghamshire, on 18 December 1964. He served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Commonwealth Office from 1965 then became Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords in 1967. Continuing in the whip role into Opposition in 1970, in 1974 he was appointed Minister of State for Industry and Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, serving until 1975, and later became the first Chairman of British Aerospace. In 1975 he was UK signatory of the convention establishing the European Space Agency.

In 1985 he opened the first ever televised debate in the Lords.

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Frank Beswick