18 Facts About Frederick Bellenger

Captain Frederick John Bellenger was a British surveyor, soldier and politician.

Frederick Bellenger received only an elementary education before starting work aged 14.

Frederick Bellenger worked in various jobs: in a tea warehouse in Houndsditch, as a messenger boy for the Post Office and as a clerk to an export company in the City of London.

Frederick Bellenger became a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery, arriving at the Western Front in the following year.

Frederick Bellenger was twice wounded, and rose through the ranks, being commissioned as a second lieutenant in 1917.

Frederick Bellenger became active in the local Conservative Association, and was elected to Fulham Borough Council as a Municipal Reform Party councillor representing Baron's Court ward in 1922 and 1925.

Frederick Bellenger did not stand for election in 1928, and shortly afterwards joined the Labour Party.

In June 1930, Frederick Bellenger was selected by the Labour Party as their prospective parliamentary candidate at Bethnal Green South West, but withdrew his candidature a year later on health grounds.

At the 1935 general election Frederick Bellenger gained the seat for Labour, and held it comfortably at each election until his death.

Frederick Bellenger remained in the army's emergency reserve, and when the Second World War broke out in 1939 he was automatically recalled to service.

Frederick Bellenger was commissioned as a captain in the Royal Artillery in February 1940.

Apart from his parliamentary activities, Frederick Bellenger wrote a column for the Sunday Pictorial under the byline "Voice of the Services".

Frederick Bellenger proved an unpopular minister with Labour backbenchers, and was attacked by those on the left of the party.

Frederick Bellenger remained on the Labour backbenches for the rest of his life.

Frederick Bellenger became increasingly disconnected from the mainstream of the party, being unsympathetic to trade unions, opposing the decriminalisation of homosexuality and supported the Unilateral Declaration of Independence by white Rhodesians.

Frederick Bellenger was close to members of the Conservative Party, including their Chief Whip Martin Redmayne and, against the arguments of his dining companion, Margaret Thatcher, privately supported the retention of prime minister Harold Macmillan at the time of the Profumo scandal in 1963 along with Julian Critchley, another of his Conservative friends.

Frederick Bellenger was still Bassetlaw's MP when he died at his Kensington, London, home in May 1968, aged 73.

Frederick Bellenger had received the honorary freedom of the Borough of Worksop two days earlier.