13 Facts About Sydney Silverman

Samuel Sydney Silverman was a British Labour politician and vocal opponent of capital punishment.

Sydney Silverman attended Liverpool Institute and the University of Liverpool, thanks to scholarships.

Sydney Silverman was a lecturer in English at the National University of Finland from 1921 to 1925, and then returned to the University of Liverpool to teach and read law.

From 1932 to 1938, Sydney Silverman served on Liverpool City Council.

Sydney Silverman contested Liverpool Exchange without success at a by-election in 1933, but was elected as Member of Parliament for Nelson and Colne in the general election in 1935.

Sydney Silverman was prominent in his support for Jews worldwide and for their rights in Palestine.

Sydney Silverman was vocal in asking from the government for a statement of war aims, which had become a contentious issue in the early years of the war.

Sydney Silverman was widely expected to join the government after the Labour victory in the general election in 1945, but, as he was a leftist, he was not appointed by Clement Attlee.

Sydney Silverman refused to support German rearmament in 1954 and had the Labour Party Whip withdrawn from November 1954 to April 1955.

Sydney Silverman was one of the founders of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Sydney Silverman wrote about several miscarriages of justice in the 1940s and 1950s, such as the hanging of Timothy Evans when it later emerged that serial killer John Christie had murdered Evans's wife and had given perjured evidence at Evans's trial in 1949.

Sydney Silverman proposed a private member's bill on abolition of the death penalty, which was passed by 200 votes to 98 on a free vote in the House of Commons on 28 June 1956; but was defeated in the House of Lords.

Sydney Silverman was opposed at the 1966 general election in the Nelson and Colne constituency by Patrick Downey, the uncle of Lesley Anne Downey, a victim in the Moors murders case, who stood on an explicitly pro-hanging platform.